Minnesota Legislature

The Minnesota Legislature is the bicameral legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota consisting of two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senators are elected from 67 single-member districts. In order to account for decennial redistricting, members run for one two-year term and two four-year terms each decade. They are elected for four-year terms in years ending in 2 and 6, and for two-year terms in years ending in 0. Representatives are elected for two-year terms from 134 single-member districts formed by dividing the 67 senate districts in half. Both houses of the Legislature meet between January and the first Monday following the third Saturday in May each year, not to exceed 120 legislative days per biennium. Floor sessions are held in the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul. Early on in the Minnesota's history, the Legislature had direct control over the city charters that set the groundwork for governments in municipalities across the state. In the early period, many laws were written for specific cities. The practice was outlawed in 1881, though attempts were still made. For instance, the long-standing Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and the city's now defunct Library Board were both created by the Legislature in the next several years. The Minnesota Constitution was amended in 1896 to give cities direct control over their own charters. Following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920, women began to be elected to the Minnesota Legislature. In 1922, Mabeth Hurd Paige, Hannah Kempfer, Sue Metzger Dickey Hough and Myrtle Cain were elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives. In 1984, the Legislature ordered that all gender-specific pronouns be removed from the state laws. After two years of work, the rewritten laws were adopted. Only 301 of 20,000 pronouns were feminine. "His" was changed 10,000 times and "he" was changed 6,000 times. In 1913, Minnesota legislators began to be elected on nonpartisan ballots.