If results from this year’s election hold, the Minnesota House is headed for a partisan tie for the first time since 1979.

Governments divided between parties already have a tough time agreeing on much of anything. So how did power-sharing work out last time?

Political observers and lawmakers who were in office during the last tied House say the Democratic-Farmer-Labor and Republican House leaders are already off to a much better start in negotiations than they were more than 40 years ago.

“In the end, it will boil down to some of the personalities involved,” said former Rep. Lyndon Carlson, a Hennepin County DFLer who is Minnesota’s longest-serving lawmaker. “I’m left with the impression that the two leaders on the House side — at least as an outside observer — it seems like they work relatively well together.”

Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, left, and Minnesota state Rep. Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring. (Courtesy photo, Forum News Service)

Current House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, and House Republican Leader Lisa Demuth of Cold Spring have already announced that committees will be co-chaired and evenly split between parties. While the speakership question remains, earlier negotiations haven’t been nearly as public or acrimonious as they were in the past.

The 1978-79 power-sharing agreement

For the sides to reach a power-sharing agreement in 1978-79, it took six weeks of grueling negotiations between House Independent Republican caucus leader Rod Searle, of Waseca, and DFL caucus leader Irv Anderson, a representative from International Falls.

And even then, the House didn’t elect a speaker until nearly a week into the 1979 session.

In his 1990 book on the tied House, “Minnesota Standoff: The Politics of Deadlock,” Searle paints a picture of Anderson as a tough bargainer who wasn’t afraid to butt heads, a trait Carlson said he may have picked up as a union leader in his hometown’s paper plant. Searle, on the other hand, had a more “reserved style,” said Carlson, who was present for the negotiations.

Mary Murphy, the longest-serving female Minnesota legislator, was serving her second term when the House had its first tie.

“I think there will be power-sharing, but it won’t be by the same rules,” said Murphy, a DFLer who represented a Duluth-area district from 1977 to 2023. “I think having … women leaders will make a big difference.”

How did it happen?

Until half a century ago, partisan ties weren’t possible in the Minnesota House, which had 135 seats. And when a panel of judges redrew the district map with an even 134 seats in 1972, the possibility of a partisan tie was reportedly seen as a remote one.

“It couldn’t happen in a hundred years,” a judge allegedly said, according to Searle’s 1990 book.

But just six years later, exactly that happened. In what some political writers called the “Minnesota Massacre,” more than 30 DFL representatives lost their seats in the 1978 election, losing the party its 100-seat House supermajority and resulting in a 67-67 tie with Republicans — then known as the Independent Republicans of Minnesota.

Republicans had struggled nationally in the years following Nixon’s Watergate scandal in the early ’70s, but the party started to make gains again on a fiscally conservative message centered around lowering taxes.

Like this upcoming session, the tied House in 1979 came with an asterisk due to election challenges.

While the initial election results yielded a 67-67 split, the results of one race won by an Independent Republican were challenged in court. St. Paul Rep. Bob Pavlak had been accused of campaign law violations, and DFLers were seeking to have him disqualified from office.

But before the session, a Ramsey County judge ruled in Pavlak’s favor, appearing to put the issue to rest and leaving the tie intact. However, it would once again appear later in the session.

Right now, House Republicans have either contested or plan to contest the results of two races. If they prevail in either of those lawsuits, they could gain a majority in the House.

How did they decide to share power?

For the sides to reach a power-sharing agreement, it took six weeks of negotiations in the final weeks of 1978 between Searle with the Republicans and Anderson with the DFL.

The sides went back and forth with offers on various proposals for splitting control of the committees. At one point, they weighed the possibility of a co-speakership until they realized it wouldn’t be constitutional.

State Rep. Rod Searle, an Independent Republican from Waseca, in his photo for the 70th Minnesota Legislative session in 1977. (Courtesy / Minnesota Legislative Reference Library)

By the time the session started, they had come close to an agreement but nothing was finalized. The House didn’t elect a speaker until nearly a week into the 1979 session.

Minnesota Secretary of State Joan Growe served as speaker for a few days after gaveling in the session on Jan. 3, 1979. She was only able to preside over sessions of the House and could not appoint members to any committees.

The parties then settled on an agreement within the first week of the session, giving the Independent Republicans the speaker’s seat and the Democrats three top committees — Appropriations, Rules and Taxes. Searle was elected speaker in a 67-66 vote after DFL Rep. Richard Kostohryz, of North St. Paul, was absent after suffering a heart attack.

Though as part of the deal, Independent Republicans gave up some of the speaker’s powers. The DFL-led Rules committee would be given the power to assign bills to committees if their chairs rejected the speaker’s assignment, giving them more power over the legislative process. Democrats also had control over the most powerful committees.

At the time, Pioneer Press Legislature reporter Bill Salisbury wrote that the IR caucus paid a “high price” for the speakership by giving the DFL control of three of the four “cornerstones of power” in the House, Searle notes in his book. Searle still insisted, however, that there were enough checks on committees and the speakership to form an effective compromise.

How did it go? What did they get done?

Much of the session went smoothly, by most accounts, though like many legislative sessions with a divided government, it came to a chaotic close in May and required the governor to call a special session to allow lawmakers to finish their work.

Carlson said lawmakers from both sides treated one another respectfully and didn’t try to take advantage when colleagues had obligations that pulled them away from the Capitol.

State Rep. Irv Anderson, a Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmaker from International Falls, in his photo for the 70th Minnesota Legislative session in 1977. (Courtesy / Minnesota Legislative Reference Library)

Carlson recalled Searle assuring Anderson he wouldn’t call up any controversial measures when Carlson attended his grandfather’s funeral in South Minneapolis for a few hours. Though Anderson, not taking any chances, still had a House DFL staffer parked outside the church ready to give Carlson a ride if Searle tried to pull a fast one.

“It’s a people-oriented institution,” Carlson said of the House, noting that public rhetoric doesn’t always match the respect lawmakers have for one another in more personal settings.

Chaotic end of session

Throwing matters into disarray in the final 10 days of the session was the return of Pavlak’s campaign problems. While the House DFL agreed to not appeal the matter to the state Supreme Court, Senate DFLers paid for an appeal on their own.

The Supreme Court in May of that year ruled Pavlak had violated campaign laws by distributing false information about his opponent, and asked the Legislature to decide his fate. Pavlak fell ill and collapsed on the House floor from stress related to the court decision, Searle wrote. Within the week, DFLers voted to oust him from the chamber, giving themselves the majority.

On the final day of the 1979 session, lawmakers adjourned in chaos as Searle and Independent Republicans tried to reinstate Pavlak to the House minutes before the midnight deadline to pass bills.

Republican Gov. Al Quie ended up calling a special session following adjournment so lawmakers could pass the remaining bills, including a transportation budget.

A DFLer went on to win Pavlak’s seat in a special election after the session, giving the party a 68-66 majority.

Anderson passed away on Nov. 17, 2008. Searle died on Jan. 5, 2014.

What’s next for the upcoming session?

If the House is still tied 67-67 when the Legislature convenes on Jan. 14, 2025, lawmakers will have several approaches to sharing power. So far, the deals they’ve announced don’t resemble what IR and DFL lawmakers put together more than four decades ago.

If the parties can’t reach an agreement by Jan. 14, Secretary of State Steve Simon would act as speaker of the House in a largely ceremonial capacity. But they’ll have to figure out who will preside in order for the House to function.

It’ll be an odd-numbered year at the Legislature, so lawmakers are required to pass a two-year state budget before the end of the session on May 19. That means House Democrats and Republicans could risk a government shutdown after the June 30 constitutional deadline if they don’t find a way to cooperate.

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