Minnesota Legislature Undergoes Dramatic Leadership Change

While a possible change in political control of the Minnesota House of Representatives had been speculated about for the past several months, nobody thought it likely that the leadership of the Minnesota Senate would shift from the Democrats to the Republicans. And, yet, that is the result of yesterday's elections in Minnesota. Republican legislators across Minnesota (together with their newly-elected Republican colleagues) are still coming to grips with their new-found leadership responsibilities. They will gather in St. Paul in the next few days to celebrate their success and pick their caucus leadership, including the new Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader.

We are assuming that Rep. Kurt Zellers from Maple Grove will be selected by his colleagues to be the next Speaker; the interesting races in that body will be for majority leader and minority leader, respectively. In the Senate, Senator Dave Senjem from Rochester deserves credit for his caucuses