House District 40B election—What it means at the Capitol
By Kyle D. Berndt | March 14, 2025 | All members
On Tuesday, March 11, 2025, a special election was held to fill the vacant seat of House District (HD) 40B. HD40B consists of parts of Roseville and Shoreview. The special election was required after the seat was vacated due to a court decision which ruled that Curtis Johnson (DFL) was ineligible to hold office. The election on Tuesday between David Gottfried (DFL) and Paul Wikstrom (R). With 9,352 votes Gottfried and 3,966 votes for Wikstrom, Gottfried has been elected representative of HD40B.
The Minnesota House will now return to a tied legislature with 67 DFL and 67 republican legislators. Earlier in session, the leadership of the DFL and republicans agreed to a co-governance model if a tie was reinstated. That agreement provides that the committees will become an equal representation of each party with a co-chair model, but the republican speaker would remain in place for the duration of the biennium. In order to pass any proposal, it will now need to be supported by a majority of all members of the committee—a mandate of bipartisan support.
Republicans prior to this had used their one seat majority to pass several pieces of legislation to the House floor. Those proposals had a focus on waste, fraud, and abuse and several other initiatives including a Care Providers of Minnesota and the Long-Term Care Imperative proposal, House File 500 to reform the Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board and require that the mandates are paid for by the legislature or rendered ineffective.
Representative-elect Gottfried is expected to be seated on Monday, March 17.
Kyle D. Berndt | Senior Director of Advocacy |
kberndt@careproviders.org | 952-851-2498