In March 2023, after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a law guaranteeing free school breakfast and lunch for all students, he was promptly swarmed by a group of excited Minnesotan children. In most states, this massive achievement (and its subsequent photo op) would be the high-water mark for the legislative session. However, in Minnesota, the Free School Meals for Kids bill was quickly outshined by the state’s other legislation—and for good reason. The law was merely one of the many triumphs that resulted from a legislative session so successful that supporters have dubbed it the “Minnesota Miracle.”
Despite being propped up by only the slimmest of majorities (the State Senate is split 34–33), the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), the state’s version of the Democratic Party, managed to achieve near-consensus in their voting. Meanwhile, legislative sessions in states with significant Democratic majorities are often wracked by infighting and stagnation. If Minnesota’s incredibly productive legislative session is an example of Democratic policy at its best, then it is also a solemn reminder of the failures of many deep-blue legislatures and a source of lessons that can help these legislatures in the future.
Minnesota has long been a Democratic stronghold—the state has voted blue in every presidential election since 1976, holding the longest streak in the nation. However, from 2014 to 2022, Republicans managed to block a Democratic “trifecta” by maintaining control of either the State House, Senate, or Governorship. Despite a predicted “red wave” in the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats maintained control of both the House and the Governorship, and won by a narrow margin in the Senate, courtesy of a victory by a slim 321-vote majority in an all-important swing district. The long-awaited Democratic trifecta allowed the DFL to enact policies that had been blocked for almost a decade, an opportunity that they accepted with glee.
At the start of the new legislative session in January 2023, DFL House Leadership displayed a poster in the caucus room that outlined over two dozen legislative priorities. By the time the session ended in May, legislation had been passed in every key policy area. The DFL’s success at consensus-building allowed it to pass bills addressing a number of cornerstone Democratic priorities, including abortion rights, gun control, LGBTQ+ rights, clean energy, and labor rights. Because many of these policies were so popular, Republican critiques of the bills often fell flat. Take, for instance, the Free School Meals for Kids bill. One legislator justified his vote against the bill by stating that “hunger is a relative term.” Governor Waltz, unsurprisingly, ended the session with a solidly positive approval rating.
With such a narrow majority, the scope and scale of Minnesota’s legislative productivity was monumental. Its accomplishments will undoubtedly lead to profound change in a state that previously settled for watered-down compromises to pass legislation. The DFL’s success came from how it paired its political background with a deep sense of urgency. The DFL had spent years fighting Republicans tooth and nail for the smallest concessions, rendering them completely unable to achieve their larger goals. Understandably, when they suddenly got the chance to fundamentally reshape the political nature of their state, they took it without hesitation. Even the so-called “majority-makers,” a group of moderate state senators who controlled the DFL, bought in almost fully to the party’s progressive agenda. They chose to fight smaller intra-party battles around the margins, such as pushing for a reduction in taxes on Social Security, rather than outright blocking important bills. This approach helped the state achieve much more than many of its Democratic counterparts.
If Minnesota was able to witness such cooperation and success in a narrowly divided Senate, one would expect states with Democratic supermajorities to be shining examples of successful liberal legislatures. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Many deep-blue state legislatures have failed to pass slam-dunk liberal policies for a variety of reasons, including legislative incompetence and hostility toward progressive policy. In New York, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans defeated a bill to address the housing crisis, crossing party lines to prioritize residents of more affluent areas over poorer constituents. Similar failures occurred in California, where state leaders claiming to be committed to aggressively tackling climate issues passed budgets that did just the opposite: In response to a budget shortfall in 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom put climate and transportation spending on the chopping block, pushing the fight against climate change to the side in what is supposedly one of America’s most progressive states.
These failures are in part reflective of the legislators themselves, who betray liberal ideals despite their supposedly “progressive” goals. In New York, for example, party infighting prevented the state’s Democratic Party from asserting power for nearly a decade. In 2012, after Democrats narrowly retook the New York State Senate, a group calling themselves the Independent Democratic Caucus (IDC) broke off from the majority, allying instead with the Republicans, to ensure prime committee appointments. It would later be revealed that Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo encouraged the IDC to caucus with Republicans in order to slow the passage of liberal policies and leave progressive legislators stranded. The IDC gave Republicans effective veto power over one of the most liberal states in America until 2018, hampering six years of progressive policy.
Whether their current passivity stems from their excessive comfort or their ulterior motives, many politicians in deep-blue states will hopefully recognize what they can learn from Minnesota’s cooperation and legislative success. Minnesota’s success did not come out of nowhere. Rather, it was the result of years of planning and frustration. Legislators came into the session with an understanding that their actions could meaningfully improve the lives of their constituents. They also knew the price of inaction, a cost that many other legislators are prone to forget as they sit complacently within their supermajorities.