The 2024 legislative session was an unusual one — bringing chaos on the House floor — and 2025 is already shaping up to be a challenging one.

To call the end of the 2024 legislative session “chaotic” would be an understatement. With less than an hour to go in the session, DFL House Majority Leader Jamie Long tried to introduce a massive bill encompassing everything from transportation to gun control to higher education and paid family leave.

Two years of frustration in the minority sparked a remarkable outcry from Republicans. This went on for 10 minutes.

Minutes later, a similar scene unfolded in the Senate.

Republicans claimed Democrats lost control of legislation even as they had a “Trifecta” of power.

“2,860 pages that were not available to any member in the chamber,” said Rep. Lisa Demuth, (R) House Speaker-Designate.

“I just feel gross coming off that Senate floor today,” added Republican Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson.

DFL House Speaker-Designate Melissa Hortman defended the process that led to this. “I had to do what I had to do to get the bills across the finish line.”

That chaotic finish to two years of DFL dominance might have been on the minds of voters in the fall of 2024.

In the Minnesota House, where all 134 seats were up for grabs, voters decided to send 67 Republicans and 67 Democrats to the State Capitol. That effectively ends the DFL “Trifecta.”

On Friday, however, DFL Rep.-elect Curtis Johnson announced he will not appeal a judge’s ruling that he did not properly establish residency in Minnesota House District 40B and will instead resign his seat, clearing the way for a special election scheduled for Jan. 28.

“Senate Republicans, we’re very thankful that single-party control in St. Paul is done and that Minnesota voters have restored some balance back to the Capitol,” said Sen. Jordan Rasmusson (R-Fergus Falls).

In an online legislative preview, Republicans celebrated, but Senate Democrats remind Republicans there’s still a 34-33 DFL majority in the Senate and a Democratic governor.

“It is false to assume that what the House passes is what is going to become law because the Senate has a perspective and so does the governor and those things have not been nullified by the elections in the House,” noted Republican Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy.

House DFL and Republican leaders know they will have to learn how to cooperate and compromise.

“I think every single member of the Legislature has a choice. Whether they want to be petty and small and personal and partisan or whether they want to focus on the work the people of Minnesota sent us here to do,” Hortman said.

“Working to find ways that we can get the work done for Minnesotans is what is expected,” Demuth added. “It is historic. We know this was one other time in history and we don’t want to make the same mistakes that maybe took place.”

The one and only time the Minnesota House was tied at 67 was back in 1979.

That ended with chaos at the end of the session — reminiscent of the end of the 2024 session.