Library News - Legislators

Martin Sabo may be best known for his long service in the U.S. House of Representatives, or for being one of the founders and leaders of the National Conference of State Legislatures. But a new book by Lori Sturdevant, Martin Sabo: The Making of the Modern Legislature, focuses primarily on his time at the Minnesota Legislature. Sabo was first elected in 1960, went on to serve as House minority leader from 1969-1972, and then served as Speaker of the House from 1973-1978. This period of time saw dramatic and lasting changes at the Legislature.

The period between 1967 and 1975 are often regarded as the beginning of the modern era at the Minnesota Legislature. It was a time of new openness in government, more complete committee record keeping, and the return of party designations. The Legislature as an institution expanded and professionalized, and this era saw the creation of the House Research Department (1967), Senate Counsel (1968), the Legislative Reference Library (1969), and the Office of the Legislative Auditor (1973).

Many state laws that we take as givens were established during this era as well. For example, in 1973, the Legislature established a state minimum wage, created data privacy standards, and set up environmental requirements for large-project developers. And in 1975, Minnesota passed the Clean Indoor Air Act, the first state in the nation to pass such a law, despite Sabo’s habit of smoking heavily, including at the Speaker’s rostrum!

If these fundamental changes to the Legislature as an institution and formative changes to state law had a founding father, Sturdevant asserts that it is Martin Sabo. She argues that we have him to thank for our modern legislative era, with his humble leadership strategies, his interest in working across the aisle, his shoe leather campaign style, his “keen mind and good heart,” and his pursuit to professionalize the institution.

The Library has several other books related to this time of legislative and public policy changes:

Minnesota’s Miracle: Learning from the Government that Worked by Tom Berg, University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

Minnesota Standoff: The Politics of Deadlock by Rod Searle, Alton Press, 1990.

Please contact us with questions, for research assistance, or to borrow any of these books: library@lrl.mn.gov or 651-296-8338.

Learn the names of the brand new legislators and refresh your memory on the returning members by taking the Minnesota Legislator Quiz! Can you get a perfect score?

People often ask the library about salaries of Minnesota legislators. Currently, legislator salaries are set at $48,250, but that will soon change. The latest issue of the Report of the Legislative Salary Council, new this month in the Library, sets legislators’ salaries at $52,750 beginning July 1, 2023. 

Prior to 2016, the Minnesota Constitution provided that legislators’ compensation was prescribed by law. A constitutional amendment regarding how legislators’ salaries are set was adopted by the voters in the 2016 election, which also happens to be our most recent constitutional amendment. The Legislative Salary Council’s first prescribed salary for legislators went into effect July 1, 2017. More details about legislator compensation are noted in the FAQ and our chart of Compensation of Minnesota Legislators, 1858 - present. 

Another new report this month is the Recommendations of the Minnesota State Compensation Council. This report, as indicated by the title, is not prescriptive but instead contains recommendations for compensation levels for the governor, other constitutional officers, judges, and several other officials. The Legislature can establish a new salary for the governor through an appropriation, or by passing a law that provides for a specific salary, or by providing for a percentage change in the salary. Under current law, if the Legislature does nothing, the salary does not change.

To see a chart of how these recommendations have related to the governor’s salary over time, see the library’s new Minnesota Governor’s Salary, 1983-Present page. Since their beginning in 1983, the Compensation Council has made recommendations nearly every odd-numbered year, but they did not meet in 2003, 2011, or in 2015. 

Contact us with questions, for research assistance, or to borrow these books and reports or any of the materials on this month's list: library@lrl.mn.gov or 651-296-8338.

Learn the names of the brand new legislators and refresh your memory on the returning members by taking the Minnesota Legislator Quiz! Can you get a perfect score?

Our Legislators Past & Present database is a rich source of biographical information and includes all 5,353 individuals who have served in the Minnesota Legislature -- a number that will soon grow as we look ahead to the start of the 93rd Legislature.

In addition to biographical details and specifics about a member’s legislative service, the database includes photographs of members when available. Many of the photographs in our database were originally printed in the Minnesota Legislative Manuals. While all Minnesota Legislative Manuals are available digitally, the scan resolution was not high enough for us to include additional images from those publications in our database without some extra work. We've partnered with the Minnesota Digital Library in recent years to include more than 3,000 photographs scanned from those publications specifically for inclusion in our database.

Until recently, many legislators were still not pictured in our database. This summer and fall, Library staff worked on filling some of those gaps and have now incorporated more than 2,500 photographs from 13 additional Legislative Manuals. 

Among those newly pictured are Sen. Laura Naplin (1927-1934), the first woman to serve in the Senate; Rep. Rosanna Payne (1927-1932), Rep. Harriet Weeks (1929-1932), and Rep. Bertha Hansen (1939-1940), some of the earliest women to serve in the House; Rep. Coya Knutson (1951-1954), who, after serving in the House, went on to be the first woman to represent Minnesota in Congress; and Rep. Charles Munn (1927-1934), who served one term as House Speaker and was the only speaker since 1905 not pictured in our database.

In addition to Rep. Coya Knutson, we've now added photographs of several other state legislators who also served in Congress: Rep. Victor Christgau (1927-1928), Rep. Dewey Johnson (1929-1934), Rep. James Bede (1931-1932), Sen. Henry Teigan (1933-1934), Rep. Richard Gale (1939-1940), Rep. Rick Nolan (1969-1972), and Rep. Betty McCollum (1993-2000).

The Library plays a vital role in preserving the history of the Minnesota Legislature as an institution. Legislators Past & Present is one of our richest and most unique resources, and expanding the photographs in this database -- which now total more than 8,500 -- enables researchers to better visualize Minnesota’s past.

Photo by House Public Information Services

Redistricting always brings a slew of legislative retirements -- district boundaries may shift dramatically, incumbents may be paired with a colleague in the same district and decide not to run, or legislators see an opportunity to run for a different office. And some legislators, as with any election cycle, simply decide to leave elected office. This redistricting cycle is no exception. There are 47 legislators -- many long-serving -- who will be leaving the Legislature this year. You may find it interesting to compare this year's retirement list with the list of retirements in 2012 -- the last time legislative districts were redrawn.

Some of those 47 individuals are pursuing other elected office, but most won't be on the ballot in November. In addition to these departures, 11 current House members are seeking election to the Minnesota Senate, and one current Senator is seeking election to the Minnesota House of Representatives. Although it is more common for House members to seek a seat in the Senate, many Senators served in the House after terms in the Senate. (Several news sources are reporting 59 members retiring which includes the 12 seeking a seat in the other body.)

The primary and general election outcomes will almost certainly mean that this list of departures will grow. Though election rates for incumbents seeking re-election are high, our turnover data show those rates, compiled since 1970, have never been 100%!

Those with keen eyes will spot some former legislators on the Secretary of State's candidate filings list. So it remains to be seen how many "true freshman" we'll see in January 2023, when the 93rd Legislature gavels in a new session.

Learn the names of the brand new legislators and refresh your memory on the returning members by taking the Minnesota Legislator Quiz! Can you get a perfect score?

January 5, 2021, the first day of the 2021-2022 biennium, marks Representative Mary Murphy's 16,073rd day in office, making her the second longest serving legislator in Minnesota history. Rep. Murphy's time in office now exceeds that of Phyllis Kahn, Carl Iverson, and Anton Rockne, each of whom served 16,072 days. Rep. Lyndon Carlson, who announced his retirement last year, remains the longest serving legislator. 

This milestone also makes Rep. Murphy the longest serving female legislator in state history.  When she took the oath of office in 1977, she was one of 13 women in the Legislature, which was a record at that time.

This year we mark more milestones: a record 72 women will serve in the Minnesota Legislature in the 2021-2022 biennium, and Senator Julia Coleman will be the youngest woman to ever serve in the Minnesota Senate.

Representative Lyndon Carlson recently announced his intention to retire from the Legislature at the end of the 2019-2020 session. He became both the longest-serving legislator and the longest serving member of the Minnesota House of Representatives on January 3, 2017, and remains so today. His record will be hard to beat.

By the time he retires in January 2021, he will have served more than 17,500 days, nearly three years longer than the second longest-serving members. There's a three-way tie for second place among three former members: Reps. Carl Iverson, Phyllis Kahn, and Sen. Anton Rockne all served 16,072 days. 

Our service timeline is another way to look at terms of service for current members. This timeline helps visualize things like which members entered the legislature in the same year and which members have served in both chambers. 

Several other long-serving legislators have also announced their retirements, and we track these announcements on our legislative retirements page. 

The American Library Association created their popular celebrity READ posters in 1985.  Bette Midler, Paul Newman, and Steve Martin were featured in some of the earliest posters, but you're most likely to remember the classic 1987 poster featuring David Bowie, which graced the walls of many public and high school libraries.

The Minnesota Library Association recently paid a visit to the State Capitol and photographed nineteen House and Senate members with favorite books for their own series of READ posters.  Around here, these might become the David Bowie posters of their time!

The legislators featured are Rep. Paul Anderson, Rep. Kristin Bahner, Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, Rep. Robert Bierman, Sen. Karla Bigham, Rep. Greg Boe, Sen. Jim Carlson, Rep. Jack Considine, Sen. Gary Dahms, Sen. Scott Dibble, Rep. Rob Ecklund, Sen. Nick Frentz, Rep. Bud Nornes, Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein, Rep. Fue Lee, Rep. John Petersburg, Rep. Dean Urdahl, Sen. Chuck Wiger, and Rep. Dan Wolgamott.  Come see which books they chose as their favorites--and which legislator is featured with his own published work of fiction.

The READ posters will be on display in the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library (State Office Building location) until summer.