In a tighter Minnesota Legislature, coalitions pushing middle path could play big role

The Minnesota Legislature is still stuck in neutral as Democrats and Republicans remain at odds over House control. Once things get back to normal at the Capitol, a new coalition could play a big role in shaping where the session heads next.

After a whirlwind two years under full DFL Capitol control, voters split the place right down the partisan middle for this year — 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans.

While a couple seats have since opened up — one is to be filled Tuesday and another probably in March — that leaves little room for either party to maneuver on its own. That has invited the possibility that breakoff members willing to partner across the aisle could have an influential role in advancing or sinking legislation.

The conditions this year could be ripe for a rise of the middle.

DFL Sen. Matt Klein, of Mendota Heights, said he took a clear message about how he should move forward.

“The message I’m hearing is they expect us to work together in a bipartisan way for middle of the road policies that affect all Minnesotans,” Klein said. “So the Blue Dog Coalition seemed like a very natural response to that.”

Klein and seven fellow Senate Democrats launched the group modeled after a congressional coalition of the same name. Members said they’ll be a moderating check on the Senate’s work and stand for “pragmatic, reasonable and balanced policies,” as the group’s mission statement reads.

That’s a shift from the last two years, when many key bills passed on from party-line, 34-33 votes. Many coalition members are from swing districts, and Klein said that gives them valuable insight into what Minnesotans want from their Legislature.

“There are some districts in the state where you cannot win unless you have talked to and convinced a few people of the opposite party, and that creates a very different dynamic for how you legislate than if you are able to just talk to your own party,” Klein said.

The coalition has some baseline priorities that could be significant as lawmakers write a two-year budget. They oppose any new tax increases, want to see a budget approved that’s smaller than the existing one and they hope to get a public construction projects bill across the finish line early — with no strings attached to other proposals.

Klein wants the Blue Dogs to work with Republicans on aligning priorities.

So far, Republican leaders have responded with skepticism.

“Each one of them could have stopped the ten billion dollars of tax increases, the mandates, the things that have happened to families and communities across the state. They each had the ability to stop that, and they didn’t,” said GOP Leader Mark Johnson.

Johnson, of East Grand Forks, said GOP lawmakers haven’t forgotten two years of full DFL control. He said he’ll believe the effort to reach across the aisle when he sees it.

“This rhetoric stuff is not worth the paper it’s written on,” Johnson said. “Until the action is done, I will remain skeptical. But open to working with them.”

The first vote testing the resolve of those Blue Dogs came Monday when Republicans tried to push the potential expulsion of Sen. Nicole Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury. She was arrested in April at her stepmother’s home in Detroit Lakes and charged with burglary. A trial that was supposed to start Monday was postponed until June after Mitchell’s attorneys invoked a legislative privilege.

Some of the coalition’s members encouraged her to resign after last session but the helped defeat the motion to expel her, voting with the entire 33 member caucus to prevent the effort to oust her from moving ahead.

Splinter caucuses aren’t new. Other subsections or consensus caucuses have emerged within the Legislature over the years. The Purple Caucus was populated by more-moderate members of both parties about a decade ago. It held regular meetings and rallied around issues that transcended party, although it faded over time.

GOP Rep. Andrew Myers, of Tonka Bay, co-founded a similar group in the House involving Republicans focused on issues facing suburban communities during his first term. They’re called the Suburban Solutions Caucus and tout attention to mental health and environmental issues among their six priorities.

“We’re working really hard as we were new legislators at the time, and we saw that opportunity to stand up for suburban families that were kind of left out of it, and our focus was really on creating those initiatives and solutions,” he said during a Minnesota Chamber of Commerce panel discussion earlier this month.

The subgroups can influence priorities within a party or a chamber. Some of it happens behind the scenes, some out in the open.

Myers said he’s sought out ways to mingle and work with members across the aisle, including asking for an office on a politically blended floor the first two years. That office building is now undergoing a renovation and lawmakers work out of cubicles instead.

When the margins for a legislative majority are narrow, members have to decide if they’ll toe the line or exert leverage in determining what gets passed and what doesn’t. The Blue Dogs say they’re ready to take a stand.

“People that are from districts that are more closely divided politically are far more likely to ask for bipartisanship, said Sen. Nick Frentz, a Blue Dog Democrat from North Mankato. “Those are districts where people go to the grocery store, go to a city council meeting, and they would like to see a little bit more cooperation, and I think they feel they’ve seen a little bit less in the political sphere of the last few years.”

DFL Senate Leader Erin Murphy, of St. Paul, said she doesn’t expect the Blue Dog Coalition will change much for her caucus.

“I think the Blue Dog Coalition is just an expression of what we already know about some of our colleagues right that they are taking a look at issues through that, through a lens, and they have expressed a real interest in doing what they've already naturally been doing, which is building coalition and working across the aisle,” Murphy said.

So far those Blue Dogs haven’t been really put to the test, but there is little doubt they will be. The Senate special election Tuesday for a Minneapolis seat will break the 33-33 tie and swing control to one party over the other. Historically, the district has favored Democrats.

With an extra vote, Democrats could opt to end the power-sharing deal in the chamber and spend the rest of the legislative session as a majority. 

Sen. Judy Seeberger, who won her seat by 312 votes in 2022, said the Blue Dog coalition builds on the cooperative spirit on display this year when the Senate opened with a power-sharing agreement. But it’s also based on a deeper pursuit, which she hopes will outlast the end of the gavel sharing.

“How can we bring our two sides of the aisle together, how can we focus on legislation that is consensus-building and not divisive?” said Seeberger, of Afton. “And those are the conversations we started to have.”

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