Minnesota's Recent Legislative Power

 This is the makeup of the Minnesota state legislature every year since cold-war politics began. 

    When you look at this chart you notice a few things. The first is that there are three years of solid Democratic control. The next is the lack of any Republican control. At least one point, Minnesota has had a Republican Governor, a Republican led Senate, and a led House. Sometimes two of the three, but never all three at once. 

    This has made it so there has never been a rapid push of Republican policy that hasn't had Democratic say. Even when both legislative bodies were controlled by the GOP, the governor still had veto power, which without 2/3 majorities in both bodies meant the governor could still stop bills and because of this, it made bills more bipartisan.

 

    I should need to also quickly mention the Ventura years,  with this kind of situation it is a blessing for true bipartisanship. Since Jesse Ventura was an Independent with a split body he truly could act as a middleman for both parties and deliver as a true independent should, although I was not around during this time but in theory how that circumstance would have worked.

    

Occasionally - however, (twice in the past 30 years) the DFL party wins a trifecta in the state. This leads to a long list of bills that the DFL has wanted to pass but could not get enough GOP support; even with a majority for the Democrats there are still potential defectors for certain policy on bills. Meaning some things do not pass due to not all party members voting yes. This past legislative session was quite a different story. With a one vote majority in the Senate and Two above the 68 needed to pass a bill in the House, and of course a signature machine governor who has only vetoed a single bill so far in his time as the governor of Minnesota.

   

 Even knowing all of this, DFL voters should not let this lower there guard. It is certainly in the realm of possibilities for this state to go all red in every body, considering they've had them all at different times.

"The world is run by people who show up"