In 1973, the Legislature merged two existing groups, the Governor's Commission on the Employment of Handicapped Persons and the Advisory Board on Gifted, Exceptional and Handicapped Persons, to create the Minnesota Commission for the Handicapped. The group was renamed the Council for the Handicapped in 1976, and finally the Council on Disability in 1987, as it's still known today.
Originally, membership was set at 30 and Commission members were appointed in September 1973. At the time, Governor Wendell Anderson remarked: "for the first time, [this commission] will give state and local governments, along with private agencies and advocate groups, the means to effectively coordinate the multitude of programs and services in this field."
Membership was reduced to 21 in 1983, and then to 17 in 2013 at the request of the executive director and via legislation passed that year (HF543/SF442*).
In 2017, along with a website redesign, MSCOD was renamed the Minnesota Council on Disability (MCD).