A rematch between attorneys who represented opposing sides in a 2023 lawsuit to remove then-presidential candidate Donald Trump from the Minnesota ballot is set to take place this week over the quorum issue Democrats have raised in the state house.
One of the first actions taken last week by Republican legislators who established a controlling majority in the Minnesota House was to hire a legal team to defend themselves in a lawsuit filed by Democrats to challenge their organizational legitimacy.
Currently, the Minnesota House has only 133 duly-elected members out of a possible 134. Republicans hold 67 seats to the DFL’s 66 seats. One seat remains vacant.
Republicans have insisted they need only 67 members on the House floor to meet the requirements for a quorum and elect leadership in the chamber. Democrats say Republicans need 68 members to reach a quorum and thus are boycotting the legislative session to prevent them from doing so.
DFL’s lawsuit
In their petition filed with the state’s high court, House Democrats argued that Republicans acted “beyond their lawful authority under the Minnesota Constitution, Minnesota law, Legislative and House rules, and traditional customs.”
Secretary of State Steve Simon also filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, and Majority Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, with similar claims.
“All of the actions taken after Secretary Simon adjourned the House, including Respondent Demuth’s election as Speaker of the House, were improper and unlawful,” says the lawsuit, which seeks to enjoin Republican legislators from “transacting any business, making any motions, making any nominations or electing any leaders until a quorum of at least 68 members convene.”
GOP response
On Tuesday, attorneys representing Niska and Demuth filed a response brief that argues the legislature’s internal organization is for the body to decide, not the courts.
“Petitioners are seeking a fleeting political advantage—they hope to deprive the opposing party of the ability to organize the House of Representatives for a few weeks,” attorneys for House Republicans wrote.
“But to achieve this, they ask the Court to reverse constitutional principles that Minnesota has consistently articulated and applied since before it became a state. That is backwards. The effect of changing circumstances on the balance of political power should be determined by our constitutional structure. Petitioners’ attempt to have it the other way around—to rearrange our constitutional order for their momentary advantage—is wholly inappropriate.”
The GOP’s reply outlines four key arguments as to why Republicans believe House Democrats’ petition should be dismissed: disputes about the legislature’s internal organization are for the legislature, not the courts, to decide; the petitioners lack standing; they cannot seek relief from something that is a result of their own misconduct; and the House has a quorum under settled Minnesota law.
“[I]t would be wholly inappropriate to exercise extraordinary-writ jurisdiction to ‘correct’ a situation resulting from Petitioners’ own wrongdoing,” the reply brief says.
“The alleged lack of quorum arises entirely because the legislator Petitioners are failing in their duty to appear for the legislative session—and because the Secretary, by a plainly unconstitutional assertion of unilateral control of the House, is seeking to block the constitutional ability of those Members who showed up for work to compel the attendance of others. They cannot be heard to demand extraordinary-writ relief from this Court in response to their own misconduct.”
Rematch
Last week the House Rules and Legislative Administration Committee voted to approve a resolution to hire a trio of attorneys to represent Demuth and Niska in the lawsuits.
The attorneys hired include Sam Diehl, Nicholas Nelson and Ryan Wilson in their individual capacities. All three work for the Twin Cities-based Cross Castle law firm, of which Niska is a partner.
Diehl, Nelson and Wilson also successfully represented then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2023 when a Democrat-allied organization filed a lawsuit to keep the Republican off the ballot in Minnesota, which House GOP legislators said on Wednesday was a factor in their decision to retain the trio.
Rep. Jim Nash, R-Waconia, who sits on the Rules Committee, pointed out that the lawyers House Democrats have hired to represent them in their quorum case—Charlie Nauen, David Zoll and Rachel Kitze Collins—were also the same lawyers that represented the Democrat-allied organization that tried, and failed, to remove Trump from the ballot.
The Minnesota Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the quorum case on Thursday. Republicans are asking the court to dismiss the DFL’s lawsuit or, in the alternative, deny it on the merits.
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
