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Balance
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One gavel, two hands in Minnesota

With an even split of representatives in the state’s House, the two parties are preparing for sharing power. Many American voters may wish for such moderation over polarization.

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Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

Well, you don’t see this every day in America’s polarized politics.

Last week, the leaders of each party in Minnesota’s House of Representatives announced that committee chairs in the chamber will be equally divided come Jan. 14 when a new Legislature convenes. Two people will share custody of one gavel on each of 23 panels.

In addition, the leaders of each party (both women) are working on a plan to share the role of speaker in the tied chamber – a Democrat at some times, a Republican at others.

The reason for this amazing amity across the aisle?

The Nov. 5 election resulted in an evenly split state House (67-67), assuming legal challenges in two races don’t stand up.

“What makes it work is if people respect each other and have a fundamental decency,” Rep. Melissa Hortman, current House speaker and a member of the state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, told Minnesota Public Radio. Her counterpart, GOP House Leader Lisa Demuth, told Twin Cities PBS, “This is going to force the ability to work together from the very start” and provides a “perfect opportunity” for civility.

In the state’s Senate, Democrats will still hold a one-seat advantage. And Gov. Tim Walz, who was the 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, still holds veto power. Yet, as Ms. Demuth told WCCO radio, “[Voters] have chosen balance. They’ve sent us back equally, not one party above the other or below in the House.” A big test for the House will come by May when the state Legislature must pass a two-year budget.

This model of balanced leadership may be an underappreciated aspect of U.S. politics. “Moderates are often overlooked in contemporary research on American voters,” wrote six political scientists in a 2022 academic paper using statistical analysis.

Conventional wisdom holds that American voters are polarized, the scholars wrote, but most voters “give a mix of liberal and conservative responses on surveys and few are consistently and firmly on one side of the aisle.” Moderate voters are also “especially consequential” in driving political accountability and candidate selection.

Through forced bipartisanship, Minnesota’s incoming House members may soon show Americans that not all voters are of a single ideological dimension. With a spirit of equality and an ear for listening, politicians need not govern with a winner-take-all mentality or stay in power through partisan gerrymandering. Minnesota may well live up to its nickname as the North Star State.

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