The Minnesota State House Republican Caucus has had quite a year - and quite an encouraging year, if you're inclined to see it.
The year so far reads like Aaron Sorkin may have written it:
- On election night, the DFL controlled the state Senate with a one-vote majority.
- That one vote was in the form of Senator Nicole Mitchell, who's currently charged with two felony counts, awaiting a trial that's been postponed several times.
- The House was tied on election night, 67-67. But two elections went to recount; one of the recounts was settled by the MN Supreme Court, which has seven DFL appointees. Make of that what you will.
- But as that decision was wending its way through the courts, it turned out that DFL House candidate Curtis Johnson had lied about living in the district he'd been elected to represent. That was too blatant for even Minnesota's high court to ignore. They nullified the election; the special election (in a fairly safe DFL district) would not occur until well into the session, leaving the House with a GOP majority for the first several weeks of the session.
- Demonstrating the deep respect for "democracy" that the prattled about during the campaign, the DFLers had themselves sworn in a fake ceremony at the State Historical Society, and failed to show up for work for the first month.
- (Deep breath)
- In the meantime, the DFL's majority leader, Keri Dziedzic, died of cancer, leaving the Senate tied. The chamber got along until the DFL easily won the special election - but the DFL in the house stated out extra hard.
With a DFL majority (however dubiously legitimate, given Senator Mitchell's legal issues) in the Senate, there was no chance the Republicans would get any legislation passed - not directly - even if there were a GOP Governor to sign it.
But a tie vote is a defeat under Minnesota legislative rules. Which gave the Republicans at least the ability to block any DFL attempts to salvage any of their hideously expensive momentum from 2023-2024. The Republicans exacted the biggest spending cuts in state history in leadership negotiations after the session dragged to a halt. The cuts were not nearly big enough to reverse the damage of the last two DFL-controlled sessions, but still huge in absolute dollars.
Governor Walz called the legislature back into special session to pass the budget, as the DFL stalled and tried to work public opinion - staking the future of their budget proposal on the public's desire to provide free healthcare for illegal immigrants.
And then it all got resolved, right?
Well, no. Remember - Aaron Sorkin, right?
At the peak of the debate about providing healthcare for illegals, Rep. Kaoly Vang Her claimed that her parents were illegals, and therefore so was she, and if Republicans voted against healthcare for illegals they were voting to kill her.
No, it's not Aaron Sorkin, it's the Minnesota State Legislature:
BREAKING: Democrat Minnesota State Rep. Kaohly Vang Her just admitted on the House Floor that she is an ILLEGAL ALIEN.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 9, 2025
How is she holding office? @ICEgov @DHSgov @RealTomHoman pic.twitter.com/7PuE4GoPQP
Now, Rep. Her is a naturalized citizen - the child of H'mong who came to the US when she was a toddler - so her claim is either a curious appropriation of oppression by a sitting politician, or grounds for investigating the circumstances of her naturalization.
Either way, it didn't work. The GOP half of the House held together as it came to a final vote Monday night:
🚨 BREAKING: The Minnesota House just voted to REPEAL free healthcare for illegal aliens!
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) June 9, 2025
This comes after a Democrat lawmaker admitted on the House floor to being in the country illegally.
Republicans successfully got the DFL Majority Leader to cross party lines. 👀 pic.twitter.com/Z5M1gOMAch
The photo shows the DFL Speaker of the House, Rep. Melissa Hortman, voting "yea" on removing the free healthcare for "undocumented Minnesotans"; the Speaker, living in a safe district, apparently took the hit for the rest of her caucus.
There will be more grounds for amateur Sorkinmongery in Minnesota: the resolution of Senator Mitchell's case, further investigation in the state's myriad DFL-run scandals (currently $600M and counting), Ken Martin's gyrations at the DNC, and of course Tim Walz's national ambitions.
But for blue-state Republicans looking for a sliver of good news - here you go. The blue tide can be held back.
Doing much more, of course, requires winning more elections.
