Minnesota State Legislature

From Ballotpedia

The Minnesota Legislature is the state legislature of Minnesota. It is a bicameral legislature, consisting of the lower Minnesota House of Representatives and the Minnesota Senate. Former Governor Jesse Ventura advocated the idea of changing the legislature to a unicameral system while he was in office, but the concept did not obtain widespread support.

The Legislature is located at the Minnesota Capitol in Saint Paul.

History

Early on in the state's history, the legislature had direct control over the city charters that set the groundwork for governments in municipalities across the state. In the early period, many laws were written for specific cities. The practice was outlawed in 1881, though attempts were still made. For instance, the long-standing Minneapolis Park Board and the city's Library Board were both created by the legislature in the next several years. The Minnesota Constitution was amended in 1896 to give cities direct control over their own charters.

In 1913, Minnesota legislators began to be elected on nonpartisan ballots. Nonpartisanship was an historical accident that occurred when a bill to provide for no party elections of judges and city and county officers was amended to include the Legislature in the belief that it would kill the bill. Legislators ran and caucused as "Liberals" or "Conservatives" roughly equivalent in most years to Democratic or Farmer Labor (later Democratic-Farmer-Labor) and Republican, respectively. In 1974, House members again ran with party designation. In 1976, Senate members again ran with party designation.

In 1984 the Legislature ordered that all gender-specific pronouns be removed from the state laws. After two years of work, the rewritten laws were adopted. Only 301 of 20,000 pronouns were feminine. "His" was changed 10,000 times and "he" was changed 6,000 times.

Senate

The Minnesota Senate is the upper house in the Minnesota Legislature. There are 67 members. Each Senate district in the state includes an A and B House district (e.g. Senate district 32 contains House districts 32A and 32B). The Minnesota Constitution forbids a House district to divide a Senate district. Before the 1960s, Senators were apportioned by county, resulting in the underrepresentation of those in cities. From statehood through 1972 the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota served as President of the Senate. In 1972 the voters approved a constitutional amendment that provided for the senate to elect the president from among its members effective January 1973.

Members are usually elected to four year terms except when districts are redrawn after the census, when they are elected to a two year term. The current make-up is 45 Democrats, 22 Republicans.

House of Representatives

The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower house in the Minnesota State Legislature. There are 134 members elected to two-year terms, twice the number of members in the Minnesota Senate. Each senate district is divided in half and given the suffix A or B (i.e. House district 32B is geographically within Senate district 32).

Following the 2004 election, a significant Republican majority of 81–53 was reduced to 68–66. In 2006, the tide turned even further, with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) gaining even more seats. The current make-up is 85 Democratic-Farmer-Labor members, 48 Republicans, and 1 Indepdendent-Republican,

References

• Wikipedia: Minnesota Legislature

External links

• Minnesota State Legislature

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