Finally an Election Result in Roseville and the Table is Set, Now What Will Be Served?

Minnesota Report

The closely watched Special Election in 40B-Roseville, was positioned to determine a potential historic election of a tied state houseand establish the balance of power in the State House. Candidate David Gottfried (DFL-40B, Roseville) trounced Paul Wikstrom (R-40B, Roseville) by 40.4%. As you likely may know, DFL candidate Curtis Johnson, was ruled disqualified as a candidate after having failed to prove legal residency after his 30% point victory over Wikstrom in November.

This victory by Gottfried emanated from a sizable turnout in the district for a Special Election where 46.69% of General Election Voters participated and in turn the number of voters were better than half of those voting in the General Election vote were 53.44% the Registered voters .

Primary Election Total Votes Cast 13,331

General Election Total Votes Cast 24,486

The resulting situation is all House Legislative Committees, with the exception of the Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy will be co-Chaired by both Republicans and DFLers, due to a power sharing agreement struck after a one month holdout by the DFL. As we have discussed previously and asked of the now Co-Chair of the Ways and Means Committee Paul Torkelson (R- 15B, Hanska) if the House Committee structure was effectively now just like Conference Committees and he agreed.

This being the case, with an even number of members, and the rules of the process being, we expect a member can only serve on the committee if they voted for the bill in question and we’re not sure how the dynamics will be if there are an odd number of members from the House and Senate, but if there an even number of members it could all workout, expect the Senate will always have a vote advantage.

This will prove to be interesting none the less.