Sen. Nicole Mitchell barred from committee, caucus meetings after arrest
Updated 9 p.m.
Senate DFL leaders announced Sunday that Sen. Nicole Mitchell would be relieved of her committee assignments and would not caucus with DFL lawmakers while her burglary case proceeds in the courts.
Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said in a statement that the situation is “tragic” and questions remained unanswered but she stopped short of blocking Mitchell from participating in floor votes.
“While the case is under review both in the Senate and in the courts, Senator Mitchell will be relieved of her committee assignments and removed from caucus meetings,” Murphy said.
Last week, Murphy announced that an ethics probe into Mitchell’s arrest has gotten started and the Senate Ethics Subcommittee is scheduled to meet May 7 to take up a complaint filed against her.
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The announcement comes just under a week after Mitchell’s felony burglary arrest and as lawmakers ready for the last three weeks of the legislative session.
Neither Mitchell nor the Senate DFL caucus has said whether she will be in attendance this week. Even in her absence, she’ll loom large over what could get accomplished or fall by the wayside this year.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson said the step to remove Mitchell from some proceedings isn’t enough.
“As caucus leaders, we are responsible to hold our members accountable for their actions,” he said in a statement issued Sunday evening. “Instead, this half-hearted punishment is a partisan effort to protect a political agenda and allow Senator Mitchell to be the deciding vote on the Senate floor.”
Last week, Mitchell was excused for both days that the Senate came in. The first-term Woodbury legislator said in a statement that she had no plan to resign and her term runs through 2026.
DFL leaders have not publicly called for her to step down and have said they’ll consider green lighting her remote participation on a day-by-day basis.
“She’s elected to represent the people in the district that sent her here and they deserve her representation,” Murphy told reporters last week.
Senate activity on bills ground to a stop in Mitchell’s absence and questions remain about what could pass in an evenly divided chamber.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Melissa Hortman said the situation wouldn’t impact the trajectory for the DFL-led House. That chamber is set to vote on a raft of budget and policy bills this week including three that would add new gun restrictions on Monday.
“The conclusion I’ve reached is that we need to put our heads down and keep doing our work,” Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, said. “The senator is innocent until proven guilty, there are further dates scheduled in her criminal proceeding. I’ve gone back and looked at the record in the House and there have been cases where some very serious charges have been leveled against an individual and they remained serving and they remained voting until the charges were resolved.”
Democrats’ priority bills could hinge on the one-vote advantage in the Senate. Without Mitchell, the chamber stands at a 33-33 split. There is no tiebreaker vote.
If she steps down or continues to be away from the Capitol, bills that Republicans view as too partisan may stall. And if she comes back, Republicans have said that they could grind things to a halt as a protest of her participation.
“If they’re going to rely on somebody who’s under investigation for first-degree burglary to get their bills through, instead of working with Republicans in a bipartisan manner, shame on them,” said Johnson, R-East Grand Forks. “This is about doing what’s right for Minnesota, not getting a political agenda through at this point.”
As budget touch up bills and policy proposals move forward in the House, Republicans have sought to moderate them but haven’t had much success. House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said she hopes that DFL leaders take GOP feedback into account and trim bills so they can pick up bipartisan backing.
“With (a) potential tie in the Senate, our votes are actually going to be needed on anything else that’s brought forward,” Demuth said. “We know that we could look at things that are not partisan, but need to be done finding a way to strip out any of the concerning things or the junk that might be in and finding ways that we could come to an agreement and be able to and serve the people of Minnesota.”
Without that sort of moderation, it remains to be seen if the bills will just hit a wall in the Senate or if Mitchell will return and provide the vote to get them through.
Negotiations are also underway for a public construction projects bill. Legislative leaders met last week to talk through parameters for the bill and for other measures that might be used as leverage to pass it.
Unlike other proposals, the bill requires a three-fifths majority of each chamber to pass because it lets the state take on debt to fund projects. Hortman said she asked GOP leaders to offer up their conditions for the bonding bill and accompanying proposals.
GOP leaders have floated a funding boost to emergency medical service providers in rural Minnesota as a condition of their support. The governor and DFL leaders have set a $16 million target but EMS providers say they need significantly more than that to stay afloat.
They’ve also called for less state spending and opposed any new tax increases this year. Depending on how the ethics investigation into Mitchell’s arrest plays out, they could also ask for a fast-track for that as part of their negotiation.
Lawmakers don’t have to pass anything this year. They approved a two-year budget last year so the state government won’t shut down if they go home without passing a bonding bill or other spending bills.
DFL leaders said they remain hopeful that they can get their priorities across the finish line before the Legislature’s May 20 adjournment date.
MPR News senior politics reporter Clay Masters contributed to this report.