Minnesota gets a taste of "Wisconsin democracy" with the Minnesota GOP's legislative power grab, and other developments in America
NB: this article has been updated as of 1/18/2025 to add new information
If my Minnesotan friends and readers think they are insulated from the Republican party's increasingly anti-democratic turn because their state consistently votes for the Democratic Party, the past week or so may come as a shock. I have often heard Minnesotans boast of their government compared to ours in Wisconsin, and indeed at times I’ve felt envious of its comparative functionality. Minnesota is, by many measures, one of the best-governed states in the country. Yet it is Minnesota's government, not Wisconsin's, that is currently experiencing a constitutional crisis. In a sense, Minnesota is getting a taste of “Wisconsin democracy.”
Wisconsinites will recognize this type of thing
To Minnesota's redneck cousins here in Wisconsin, there is no surprise to us at what Minnesota’s Republicans are now doing. We've been experiencing this kind of misgovernment and naked corruption from our Republicans for nearly 15 years, starting with when Wisconsin’s Republicans, helmed by Scott Walker, took full control of the state in ye olde year of 2010.
Power grabs, legislative map-rigging (AKA gerrymandering) in their favor, and efforts to undermine electoral outcomes that they don't like have been a constant feature of Wisconsin's Republican Party. And this is to say nothing of the broad support that Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his loss here in 2020 enjoyed within most of the ranks of the Wisconsin Republicans. In a few words: They are bad at losing.
Wisconsin saw an especially notorious example of this in 2018, when then-governor Scott Walker and Speaker of the Assembly Robin Vos pushed through a law to strip powers away from incoming governor Tony Evers after he defeated Walker that November. Why they didn't do this during the previous 8 years they had full power was obvious: they had full power, and had no need to undercut the governor's authority, because he was a Republican. That is the mercenary logic of the Republican Party, democracy be damned.
Across the rushing Mississippi, we now see a similar attempt to undercut an electoral result that the Republicans don't approve of. For those unaware of the Republican-led clownery unfolding in Saint Paul, here's a summary: in November, Republicans won a few Minnesota House seats previously held by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party - the Minnesotan version of the Democrats – which ended trifecta control of the state’s government for the Democrats. The November result was Republicans having 67 seats to the Democrats' 67 seats. In other words, a tied statehouse. It was broadly understood that this would result in a negotiated power-sharing arrangement between the Democrats and the Republicans, given that the House was split straight down the middle.
But in one of those odd twists of fate, a Democratic representative for the Twin Cities area was found by a judge to not meet the requirements under Minnesota law on having to live in the district that they are a legislator for. He thus resigned - and with this, handed temporary legislative control to the Republicans, giving them a one-seat majority.
To quote the late, great salesman Billy Mays, "but wait - there's more!"
In Minnesota's House District 54A - a district that contains the Minneapolis suburb of Shakopee - Democratic Representative Brad Tabke narrowly defeated his Republican challenger last November, winning re-election by an itty-bitty number of votes. The election was subject to a recount, which confirmed his victory over his Republican challenger by just 14 votes out of over 20,000 votes cast.
As an aside, people who know me know that I constantly belabor how every vote counts. And while saying it can get tedious after a while, results like this crystallize that reality - your vote does matter. 14 votes? Plenty of people have holiday gatherings larger than that.
BUT THEN, during all of this, 20 absentee ballots from the City of Shakopee – which voted for Kamala Harris 51.3% to Trump's 46.2% - were found to have not been counted for the election. A judge found that these ballots would not have swung the election - indeed, 6 of the affected voters testified in court that they had voted for Democratic representative Brad Tabke. But the modern Republican Party never wastes a good opportunity to undermine faith in the integrity of our elections if it means power for them. They insisted that a special election be held for the seat, despite Tabke’s confirmation as the winner, because they saw an opportunity to grab a seat that they had lost an election in.
All of it adds up to this: the Republicans in the House are now refusing to seat Tabke to his rightfully-won seat despite his confirmed victory, and with the resignation of the Democratic representative I mentioned earlier, that means they "have" a 2 seat majority. And even in the likely event that the representative who resigned is eventually replaced with a Democrat, by refusing to seat Tabke, they will still have a majority of 1 seat - giving them full control of the chamber despite Tabke's lawful, confirmed victory. It's political skullduggery at its finest.
This has set Minnesota’s government proverbially aflame - owing to the Republican power grab, the Democrats have responded by refusing to enter the legislative chamber, denying them a quorum. That's just fancy talk for, "having enough people present to do business in the legislature."
But the Republicans are acting as if they do have enough people present to do the legislature's business, electing a speaker and assigning committee chairs. And so here we are – Minnesota is thus getting a taste of the many crises that have beset Wisconsin over the past decade, thanks to Republican powerlust. Currently, there is litigation ongoing regarding both the Republican refusal to seat Representative Tabke and the actions they have taken without a legally-required quorum. But for now, dysfunction reigns. I am personally unsure of where this all ends up for our neighbors in Minnesota, but it’s safe to say that it’s an extremely ill-boding start to Minnesota’s new legislative session.
And here's an update on January 18th, after I published the article: the Minnesota Supreme Court has cancelled the special election called by Governor Tim Walz to replace the representative who resigned, because he called it before the legislature is in session (apparently Minnesota law requires that an order for a special election be issued after the legislature gavels in). This means that the seat will not be filled until February or March at the earliest. The Republican-caused chaos seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
I don’t say this to dunk on my Minnesotan friends – I love our neighbor to the west quite a bit, and Wisconsin is hardly a shining city on a hill in this way – but the basic point is this: anywhere the Republicans have opportunities for power, they will seize it and break the law if they must. It doesn’t matter if your state is progressive or not. Wisconsin used to be considered a bastion of progressive ideals, labor rights, and good government before Scott Walker and his boys rolled into Madison.
And as the saying goes, a fish stinks from the head – Donald Trump was the ringleader of a conspiracy in 2020 to throw out the results of an election that went poorly for him, thus attempting to steal it. And as Special Counsel Jack Smith noted in his final report on his investigation into Trump’s election interference, Trump would have been convicted for his role as the head honcho in this conspiracy if he were not on his way back to the White House.
It’s also a reminder that even well-governed states like Minnesota can quickly fall into chaos when Republicans win power, and so it is crucial to realize that this tendency is not at all relegated to only red America. It’s not just places like the South where Republicans do this – increasingly, it’s across America.
A defeated Black Nazi, election lawsuits, and North Carolina’s besieged democracy
But speaking of the South, I am reminded of North Carolina, which like Wisconsin has also seen a sustained Republican assault on democracy that dates back well over a decade. Indeed, North Carolina and Wisconsin’s Republicans have often seemed to take diabolical ideas from each other on how to best and suppress democracy in their states.
In November, despite Trump’s narrow victory at the top of the ballot, Democrats won several races down-ballot in North Carolina, such as attorney general, secretary of state, and lieutenant governor. And of course, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein easily defeated self-professed “Black Nazi” and KKK admirer Mark Robinson in the governor’s race, who was the state’s Republican lieutenant governor. A word of advice to all my readers: don’t post Hitler praise on a porn forum, especially under the same username you use for your Pinterest and YouTube accounts. That’s bad form.
But as North Carolina Republicans were on the cusp of losing some power after November, they rammed through their gerrymandered legislature laws surgically designed to reduce the power of the governor, attorney general, and to bring election boards under the control of a Republican official. Why? Because increasingly, Republicans across the country don’t think Democrats ought to be able to govern, even when Democrats defeat them in elections. It really is that simple.
And in an officially-nonpartisan-but-actually-very-much-partisan Supreme Court race that was held alongside their other elections, the Democratic-aligned candidate, Allison Riggs, is currently fighting a lawsuit by the Republican-aligned candidate to throw out 60,000 legally-cast ballots. Several recounts have confirmed Riggs’ victory of a few 100 votes out of over 5 million cast. Naturally, this lawsuit is backed by the North Carolina Republican Party.
Considering her narrow margin of victory, this is clearly an attempt to steal an election, especially because the challenged ballots are overwhelmingly from Democratic voters. Jefferson Griffin, the Republican-backed candidate in the race, also fought in court to get the case heard by the conservative-controlled North Carolina Supreme Court, where he has indeed received a sympathetic audience.
The court’s conservative majority ruled in favor of Griffin and the Republicans’ challenge to block certification of the election as the lawsuits continue – an alarming move, considering that again, Riggs’ won and recounts have confirmed it. Keep in mind that Riggs’ term should have already started on January 1st, but because of this anti-democratic lawsuit, it has been delayed. A brief Riggs’ filed in court summarizes this nicely,
“The North Carolina voters chose Justice Riggs over Judge Griffin …
At Judge Griffin’s request, the counties have already conducted a full machine recount and partial hand recount. Those recounts confirmed Justice Riggs’ victory. Judge Griffin also filed a series of protests challenging over 60,000 votes, but the State Board of Elections dismissed half of those protests on December 13, 2024, and the rest on December 27, 2024.”
All of that’s to say: the election is over. The Republican-backed candidate lost. He’s not happy about it, so he’s hoping his buddies will do him a solid and throw out 60,000 legally-cast votes. If the shoe were on the other foot and the liberal candidate were doing this in a race she had lost, the Republicans would be yelping bloody murder. I hope that this farce ends soon, and that Allison Riggs' victory is ultimately affirmed.
A nationwide, anti-democratic assault by the party of Trump, and how to fight back
Whether it’s the rolling Appalachians of North Carolina to the bucolic lakes and prairies of Minnesota, Americans are seeing the erosion of their democratic institutions in real time. And it’s not a tit-for-tat, bipartisan thing – it is driven by Donald Trump’s Republican Party, and its blatant disregard for democratic outcomes that they dislike.
People are understandably fixated right now on the second inauguration of Donald Trump: what will it mean for democracy in this country? And they are right to be alarmed – Trump has openly pledged to investigate and jail political rivals, cram the federal government full of loyalists (just look at his cabinet of billionaires and sex criminals), and just generally suck. There are reports that Trump’s people, as part of their “vetting,” for positions in his second administration, are asking questions like who won the 2020 presidential election to probe for loyalty to him. Clearly, Donald is still smarting from his defeat by Joe Biden 4 years ago despite his impending ascent back to the White House.
But I’ve tried to show in this piece that democratic backsliding has been happening from the ground up in this country for quite some time. It pre-dates Donald Trump. As someone who’s been doing political work for a solid decade in Wisconsin, where we’ve seen constant assaults on freedoms and rights, I’d use this moment to advise my readers of just how crucial local and state government is. Many of the sinister plans Donald Trump has for the country, like mass deportations, can only happen at scale with extensive collaboration by local and state authorities.
So, while Donald Trump’s ego - which is the size of Jupiter - may draw our attention in the near term with the force of its vainglorious gravity, it’s at the state level where many of these democratic erosions have been playing out. That’s why one way I’ll be preparing for a second Trump term will be by keeping my eyes and ears on the ground here in Wisconsin.
I also find that focusing my efforts on local and state issues gives me more actionable steps to take, like contacting my local city councilmember or state legislator, compared to the goings on of faraway Washington. That might sound bloodless when compared to the clownish, 24/7 spectacle of Trump’s Washington that has forced many of us in America to be a captive audience to a landfill fire, but it is also honest. This stuff matters.
In closing, reader: I would bet that you have issues that you care about that need good-hearted people to tend to them, whether that be on voting rights, reproductive freedom, immigrant rights, labor organizing, and so on. These are issues where decisive policy outcomes often occur at the state and local level, not from Trump’s Washington. Find an organization doing the work, and plug in – whether that’s monetary donations, volunteering, or even working for them yourself. You’ll maybe even feel a little better.
In the meantime, I deeply hope that democracy prevails in Minnesota, North Carolina, and across the sweeping vastness of America.
