It was one of the all-time classic Minnesota legislative meltdowns.
A fed up House Speaker begins a roll call at midnight while GOP members want to continue a debate on a bill that had already passed the eight-hour mark. Shouts of protests along with parliamentary motions ignored from the rostrum.
By the next morning, tempers had eased but raw feelings remained.
“This heavy handed approach to governance sets an extremely dangerous precedent,” said GOP House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth. “It undermines the integrity of our institutions and diminishes the public trust that they put in us.”
“The minority absolutely has a right to be heard. Eight hours was a full debate,” DFL House Speaker Melissa Hortman said. “But just as the rules provide that the minority has a right to be heard, the rules also provide that the majority has a right, and the responsibility, to govern.”
Coming at midnight, still days from the mandatory adjournment, most people saw it hours later on House-produced video. That made it a made-for-video event unlike the watched-live final-night meltdowns in 2009 when then-House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher nearly broke her gavel, or in 2018 when then-House Speaker Kurt Daudt followed suit. (Both parties revive these stories when minorities complain about being cut off as part of a “your-side-did-it-too” defense.)
The Minnesota House has traditions that are apparently too cherished to question. One is that any member with the storied “election certificate” can speak as long and as often as they want — cut short only by the end of the session day at midnight or the end of the Legislature in May.
Filibusters — the filing of time with endless speeches that are often only peripherally related to the topic at hand — are rare in St. Paul, but they happen. First Monday night for a debate on a bill restricting junk fees and again Wednesday on revisions to the paid family leave law. The rules-based way to end them is to move the previous question, but House Speaker Melissa Hortman described that as “the nuclear option.”
The other tradition is that each has a right to have the ability to activate their microphones and have their speech amplified, whether they have been recognized by the speaker or not. After one particularly raucous finish to a session in 2015, Daudt even installed a button on the rostrum that allowed him to mute the mics of all members on the floor of the House. When DFLers found out about it after the MinnPost article, they were outraged.
When she took over as speaker in 2019, Hortman had the button uninstalled, saying she preferred to use her gavel to keep order. When asked about that decision Thursday, Hortman smiled and said there was a moment in the furor where she couldn’t hear Chief Clerk Pat Murphy who stands just feet from her “but I knew what he was saying so it really didn’t matter if I heard him or not.”
Are both traditions universal in state legislatures in the U.S.? Or are they another example of Minnesota Exceptionalism, the adage that the state does everything better?
Of course the answer is the latter. Unlimited debate and open mics are mostly a Minnesota thing. According to an analysis of rules by the National Conference of State Legislatures, most states have some restrictions — either time limits or caps on the number of times a member can speak to any motion. Most have rules for motions to end debate and put a matter to a vote.
“No member shall speak more than twice on the same question without leave of the House; provided, however, that the movant of the matter pending shall be permitted to speak in reply, but not until every member choosing to speak shall have spoken,” say the rules of the Hawaii House. “No member shall speak longer than five minutes the first time and three minutes the second time on the same question; provided, however, that any member may yield his or her speaking time to another member.”
“A member may not speak more than once nor occupy more than 15 minutes in debate on any question,” says the Florida House.
The Illinois Senate: “No Senator shall speak more than five minutes on the same question without the consent of the Senate, nor more than twice on that question. No Senator shall speak more than once until every Senator choosing to speak has spoken.”
The Iowa House has similar limits: “No member shall speak more than once on the same question without leave of the speaker, nor more than twice until every member choosing to speak has spoken … A member shall be limited to ten minutes debate on bills, resolutions, and amendments, but may be granted an extension of time by consent of the house.”
Washington has different time limits depending on how close the House is to the end of session or a cutoff for action on certain items — 10 minutes normally but three minutes at crunch time. In California it is five minutes.
Hortman revealed this week that she had vetoed a move by House Majority Leader Jamie Long to add debate limits to the House rules. Long said it was the result of an examination of House rules in 2018 during which a national expert describes the state’s lack of limits as “the Wild West. They said it was out of the norm for essentially any other chamber in the country.”
Hortman said Demuth had just been elected House Minority Leader and she wanted to give her a chance to work with the majority. “I said relationships are more important than rules and let’s give them a chance, give her a chance.
“Can I say right here and right now, he was right? We should have put time limits in the rules,” Hortman said.
Peter Callaghan
Peter Callaghan covers state government for MinnPost. Follow him on Twitter @CallaghanPeter or email him at pcallaghan@minnpost.com.
