In a bold statement, Rep. Erik Mortensen said the entire Minnesota Legislature is scripted and all outcomes are predetermined.
In a Wednesday Alpha News Live interview, Mortensen criticized his Republican colleagues for supporting a bill, HF 101, that codifies the governor’s unilateral emergency powers in the Minnesota Constitution.
Mortensen, who represents District 55A and is a first-term lawmaker, has been pushing his “Never Again” bill, HF 2204, which would take away the governor’s power to unilaterally declare an emergency and implement jail time if he tried to do so.
HF 101, a “horrible bill” according to Mortensen, would require the approval of both the House and Senate for the governor to extend a peacetime emergency beyond seven days, but would not take away his power to declare them in the first place.
While many Republican candidates for governor have come out in favor of the Never Again bill, establishment Republicans will not get behind it, Mortensen said.
Mortensen said almost every decision is calculated in advance, which is made possible by the “24-hour rule” put in place by Democrats. The 24-hour rule says every representative who wants to bring an amendment or motion to the floor must alert the speaker of the House 24 hours beforehand.
“I can see how the debate would be so much more real if you didn’t have to alert the majority party of what you plan on doing 24 hours in advance,” Mortensen explained. “It’s literally just like a play. They go through their scripts, and the outcome is predetermined.”
“The only thing you can really do that would be in real time, and that would be real organic, is you can make some motions the same day, but still, they know what’s happening in advance.”
Rep. Mortensen says the entire legislature is "scripted" and "phony" due to a Democrat rule that requires all members to alert the speaker 24 hours in advance of any motion they will bring to the floor session. pic.twitter.com/H3tnGXLkEj
— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) May 13, 2021
Mortensen said that some Democratic members will tell other members, both Democrat and Republican, what is going to happen before the floor session.
House Speaker Melissa Hortman, often knowing what will be said on the floor, quickly rules comments “out of order,” which Mortensen said has become a strategy for avoiding a vote. Claiming an amendment is “not germane to the bill” is another tactic to avert calling a vote.
“Melissa Hortman has been breaking the rules of the House floor since day one,” Mortensen said.
He also made clear that leadership at the Capitol needs to change.
“We need to start holding these people accountable for what they promised they would do at the Capitol,” he said, crushing the idea that the Legislature is a “team sport” as many people preach it is.
“When you take this team mentality, you are literally as strong as your weakest link, and there’s a lot of weak links down there,” Mortensen said.
He claimed that the “vast majority” of lawmakers at the Capitol are more concerned with making “friends” with other legislators than they are about creating real change and results for Minnesota citizens. They are scared to “make anybody mad,” he said.
Mortensen works on finding candidates who want to see freedom preserved in Minnesota and will fight the “fraudulent” and “phony” system currently in place.
Mortensen said a special session will most likely be called after the end of the legislative session, conveniently right when Gov. Tim Walz’s emergency powers will need to be extended yet again.
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Rose Williams
Rose Williams is an assistant editor for Alpha News.
