It's not often that people at the Capitol don't really know something, or profess to. But a casual poll around the halls Wednesday night found that no one really knows when two major party nominees for governor were last sitting in the same house of the Minnesota Legislature.
That's the situation this year, when the gubernatorial aspirations of House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, the DFL nominee, and Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Delano, the Repulican pick, have been an undertone behind House debates.
Scott Magnuson, director of Senate Information Services, who's been at that job for more than 25 years, scrolled back through some records and his own prodigious memory and figured it's been "since at least the 40s." That would be 60 years or more since two candidates shared the same room. My colleague Lori Sturdevant, who's also authoritative on legislative history, takes that back to the 1930s. (Her column on speakers who've become governor is here.)
Most races in recent decades, Magnuson noted, have involved a sitting governor, or a Congressman, or a constitutional office holder, or some other non-legislator. Gov. Tim Pawlenty had been Republican House Majority Leader and Roger Moe had been DFL Senate Majority Leader when they ran for governor in 2002. Close, but different houses.
Post a comment if you know for sure.
Bill McAuliffe
