Minnesota Capitol. Photo courtesy of House Public Information Services.
A majority of Minnesota voters say House Republicans should agree to a power-sharing agreement with the DFL, and a strong plurality agrees that the House should seat DFL Rep. Brad Tabke of Shakopee despite the loss of 20 ballots in his closely-divided contest.
In a survey published this week by KSTP and SurveyUSA, a plurality also agreed with the recent state Supreme Court decision that a House quorum is 68 out of 134 total seats. Just 23% agree with the GOP’s contention that 67 out of 133 currently occupied seats constitute a quorum.
The findings were published on the same day the GOP and DFL announced that a power-sharing agreement had been reached, although details were not immediately available.
The results suggest that GOP arguments about the ongoing power struggle aren’t fully resonating with voters, despite what’s become conventional wisdom around the Capitol that Democrats are losing the public with their three-week-long boycott.
Democrats have said they want assurances that the GOP will not attempt to unseat Tabke while it has a one-vote advantage in the chamber, while Republicans have said that if Democrats want to negotiate a power-sharing agreement they should end their boycott of the legislative session.
“These numbers underscore why Republicans are resorting to increasingly desperate stunts as they try to seize power that voters did not give them,” said a DFL spokesperson prior to the announcement of the power-sharing agreement.
The House GOP did not respond to a request for comment.
There is one area where Republican messaging seems to be getting through, however: lawmaker pay. The survey found that 49% of respondents say that DFL members should not be receiving a salary while they boycott. A hair under one-third said those legislators should still be paid.
Party-level breakdowns show relatively large numbers of Republicans disagreeing with positions taken by party leaders on these questions. Roughly one-third of GOP voters disagree with the party’s arguments about what constitutes a quorum, for instance.
Nearly 40% of Republicans say Tabke should be seated, while 44% say he should not. A majority of Republicans (50%) say the party should honor the power-sharing agreement, with just 31% saying they should not.
By contrast, roughly two-thirds of DFL voters agree with party leaders that a quorum is 68 seats, that Tabke should be seated, and that Republicans should honor the power-sharing agreement.