In between meetings on a recent Monday, Melissa Hortman took a moment to check the notifications piling up on her phone. She had a new message from the soon-to-be minority House Republican caucus about what committees they want each member to serve on.
“Not a lot of chicks in that group, not a single woman in here,” Hortman said, scrolling through their lists for each committee. “There’s a statute that says that we have to achieve geographic balance. There isn’t one that says that we have to do anything about gender balance.”
A DFL state representative from Brooklyn Park, Hortman made a splash in 2017 when she criticized a handful of male legislators for playing a card game in a side room while several female legislators of color were speaking on the House floor. Some Republicans were furious and demanded that she apologize, to which she responded: “I’m not sorry.”
View the complete January 7 article by Briana Bierschbach on the MPR News website here.