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Senate Chamber from the Gallery

It took ten days for the Senate to organize in 1971. The days were filled with parliamentary maneuvering, the chief justice refusing to administer the oath, legislators storming out of the chamber, two secretaries of the Senate, two versions of the Journal, and a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling. What caused this turmoil in the Senate at the start of the 1971 session?

The election

In 1971, there were no party designations, but legislators chose to caucus with either the conservatives or the liberals. Conservatives had controlled the Senate chamber since at least 1913, the year legislators began being elected on a nonpartisan basis.

The results of the 1970 general election indicated that there would be 33 conservatives, 33 liberals, and one independent in the Senate. Prior to the election, the one independent, Richard Palmer, had said he would caucus with the majority, but the election results left the Senate without a clear majority party. Despite attempts by both caucuses to woo Palmer to their side, he eventually announced he would side with the conservative caucus when the legislature convened.

Then, more complications arose when Palmer’s opponent in the general election, Francis LaBrosse, filed an unfair campaign practices charge against him. This stirred up discussion before session convened over whether or not Palmer would be seated and, if seated, whether he could participate in the organization of the Senate.

On December 31, 1970, the Attorney General issued an opinion that explained that the oath of office may be administered to anyone who has an election certificate and that the Senate would need to consider the question of the eligibility of its members. The opinion also indicated that all senators could vote on organizational matters.

The first day of session

On January 5, 1971, the 67th Legislature convened. Lieutenant Governor Rudy Perpich, a former senator and DFL party member, called the session to order as President of the Senate, which was the custom at the time. Despite being the presiding officer of the body, he was not a member of the body and, therefore, it was presumed that he could not vote as a member.

Much parliamentary maneuvering ensued to attempt to keep Palmer from being seated. Perpich surprised the chamber by presenting only 66 names to be sworn in that session, blocking Palmer from being seated. Chief Justice Oscar Knutson insisted that all 67 senators-elect who hold an election certificate be sworn in. When Perpich refused, Justice Knutson left the chamber without swearing in any senators at all.

The Senate then called on Mr. Patrick O’Neil, a notary public, to administer the oath, with the hopes that he would swear in all members except Palmer. He refused, but then rushed forward to administer the oath individually to Palmer. (Some media reports at the time credit Palmer as being the first senator sworn in that session.) Rep. Jack Fena, a DFL House member who was standing in the back of the chamber, was then called forward to administer the oath to all except Palmer, but Palmer stood anyway and took the oath a second time with the rest of the chamber.

After this tumultuous swearing in process, Perpich further surprised the body by continuing to deny Palmer’s presence or recognize his vote when members were deciding who would serve as Secretary of the Senate. The conservatives’ nominee was George Goodwin, whose election included Palmer’s vote. Instead of the vote going in the conservatives’ favor, in an unprecedented move Perpich ruled that he could vote to break what he deemed a 33-33 tie in order to vote in the liberals’ choice for Secretary of the Senate, Pat Flahaven. Goodwin and Flahaven were each given the oath of office. However, as Flahaven was given the oath, the conservatives left the chamber with promises to file a lawsuit. It was reported that Goodwin then received the oath of office in the corridor outside the Senate chamber.

The Senate is organized

For the next few days, there were two versions of the Journal of the Senate, with the liberal’s Journal ignoring the presence of Palmer. The unofficial transcripts, the Journal, and the alternative journal text show how the question of Palmer’s seating and the question of how many votes were counted for each motion were debated at each daily session.

On January 13th, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the Senate had the responsibility to determine Palmer’s eligibility, and that the Lieutenant Governor does not have the authority to break a tie and could not exclude Palmer.

The January 14th session opened with continued quibbling about whether there were 66 or 67 senators in the body as Senators discussed points raised by the court ruling. Eventually, the body successfully voted to amend the Journal of the Senate of the preceding days to acknowledge that Palmer had been seated. The Senate commenced further organization and was ready to proceed with legislative business.

For further reading:

Sources listed in chronological order. If you would like to request any of these sources, please email the library at library@lrl.mn.gov.

State constitutions are amended much more often than the U.S. Constitution, and Minnesota’s is no exception. Since 1858, Minnesotans have considered 217 constitutional amendments, with 121 approved by voters. The most recent amendment "to extend the dedication of lottery proceeds to the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund” passed with overwhelming support in November 2024. The Library’s State Constitutional Amendments Considered web page provides more detail on all Minnesota's constitutional amendments and provides links to related publications, such as this collection from the House Research Department: Constitutional Amendments.

The State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School debuted an incredibly useful resource in 2023: 50constitutions.org. Their goal is to aid the work of academics, judges, legal practitioners, policymakers, and journalists by providing easy access to the text of all 50 state constitutions in readable form and allowing users to search within and across states.

Last week, the Initiative launched new features for the Minnesota Constitution. Users can now view the Minnesota Constitution as it stood on any date in its history, compare different versions of amended provisions, and read about significant amendments and historical moments. This feature is also available for nine other states, and additional features will be added for more states on a rolling basis.

Selected Resources from the Library's Collection

Minnesota Constitutional History:

 

Constitutional Law:

  • State Constitutional Law in a Nutshell (2003)
  • Hidden Laws: How State Constitutions Stabilize American Politics (2021)
  • Who Decides: States as Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation (2022)
  • The Law of American State Constitutions (2023)

 

Please contact us with questions or for research assistance: library@lrl.mn.gov or 651-296-8338.

Smiling young white man in a car holding a car keyIf you're the parent of a teen or young adult, you may know firsthand the challenges of scheduling a driver's exam. Over the last several years, Minnesota's driver's licensing system has been congested due to more people seeking licenses and staff shortages at Driver and Vehicle Services (DVS). This summer, the Star Tribune reported on how this problem persists.

The ongoing issues faced by driver examination stations across the state were also documented by the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) in their Driver Examination Stations: 2021 Evaluation Report, followed by updates in 2022 and 2023.

In 2023, the legislature mandated a report from the Department of Public Safety, Driver and Vehicle Services, to review recommendations from both the OLA and a 2022 independent review. DVS reported that all recommendations were implemented with the exception of a required pre-application.

A related new report in the library this month is the Legislative Report on Exam Scheduling. According to this latest report from DVS, there were 188,444 Class D and commercial driver's license appointments scheduled with DVS, and 146,794 road tests taken in fiscal year 2024. DVS received an appropriation to hire additional examiners, which will open up over 140,000 exam slots per year in an effort to alleviate the difficulty many Minnesotans have when scheduling their class D road test.

Legislative committee work in actionWhen was this particular phrase added to the criminal code, and why? Why did the Legislature remove this word from statute, only to reinstate it the next year? When was the first time the Legislature introduced a bill to legalize sports betting, and what happened that year?

The Legislative Reference Library regularly receives these kinds of questions, and legislative history research can help answer them. But this research process can be time consuming and complex.

Last January, the Office of the Revisor of Statutes hosted a CLE that was presented by reference librarians from the Legislative Reference Library on this topic, breaking down the process with real-life examples, and outlining how research methods and tools vary across years.

If you missed the presentation, or are interested in learning more about conducting this kind of research, you can view an archived version of the CLE presentation and access handouts from the presentation.

A few highlights of the Legislative History Research CLE include:

 

Photo: This image from the 1980s, included in our photo collection, was scanned from the files of the Minnesota Senate Photographer with the generous help of the Minnesota Digital Library.

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