Politics we can be proud of

Welcome

Welcome to the 2025 “The State of Bipartisanship” report produced by Majority in the Middle.
 

This report is designed to analyze bipartisan bill authorship as one important reflection of effective collaboration.

The effort identifies where cooperation happens, elevating those who are leading the way. The report also aims to collect replicable ideas to cultivate a healthier political environment -- in St. Paul and in state capitols across the country. 

Our first report in 2023 set the baseline and uncovered what we named hidden bipartisanship: the work being done across the aisle that doesn’t get a lot of attention and isn’t reflected in the outcome of large omnibus bills when final votes fall along party lines. 

Our 2025 report, the third report we’ve published, is the first opportunity for a budget-year-to-budget-year comparison of bill introductions and committee hearings, as the Minnesota legislature operates on a two-year biennial cycle. 
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Executive Summary

The legislative ties in 2025 (33-33 in the Senate for the first three weeks, and 67-67 in the House from March 17 onward) created a rare moment to rethink assumptions baked into winner-take-all systems. With no party in control, norms around leadership, committees, and agenda-setting were open to negotiation. The situation sparked conversations about power-sharing and the potential of more collaborative governance.

 

Though temporary, the ties challenged the notion that legislative effectiveness depends on strict partisan control.

 

Trends point to a legislature in a delicate state – grappling with the demands of shared power during a season of increased polarization – and juggling the competing pressures of trust and transparency. Whether these shifts lead to more resilient governance or deeper fragmentation will depend on how leaders respond in the sessions ahead.

These trends are not mutually exclusive -- they reflect the dual pressures legislators face in a politically divided environment.
On one hand, the structure of a tie incentivizes cooperation: bipartisan bills are more likely to be enacted.
On the other hand, the current political climate does not broadly reward bipartisanship. 

The Minnesota legislature is navigating two realities at once: a procedural need for collaboration and a political impulse toward division. The result is a session where more bipartisan work is visible, against a backdrop of sharpening partisan identity in Minnesota and across the country.

 

This tension is not a flaw of the system, but a feature of governing in a moment where trust is fragile, incentives are shifting, and every bill carries both policy and political weight.
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A Sample of Results from the Report

The 2025 session offered a vivid reminder that legislative dynamics are rarely linear.

 

When looking at 2025 vs 2023, two seemingly contradictory trends emerged side by side: More bipartisan bills were introduced and heard in committees in 2025, suggesting a growing appetite for cross-party collaboration and a recognition that shared authorship can help bills gain traction in a tied chamber. At the same time, a higher percentage of bills with only Republican authors were introduced in both bodies. The percentage of bills that were solely authored by DFL’ers was lower than in 2023 when they held a trifecta, but still made up more than a quarter of all the bills.
 

Majority/minority dynamics were still on display in committee hearings, when measuring results from the entire session 

• Senate: 74% of bills heard had a chief author from the DFL party, and 26% had a chief author from the Republican party

• House: 44% of bills heard had a chief author from the DFL party, and 56% had a chief author from the Republican party

 

At the same time, the committee average for percentage of bipartisan bills heard in both bodies went up

• In the House: 35% in 2025 from 20% in 2023

• In the Senate: 39% in 2025 from 31% in 2023

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Actions Taken by Individual Legislators Reflect Bipartisan Work

• 65 of 67 members of the Senate, and 127 of 134 members of the House, had at least one member of the opposite party signed onto the bills they carried as the chief author.
   

• Six Senators (two DFL and 4 Republican) had bipartisan co-authors on at least 50% of the bills they authored. 

  • When sole-authored bills are subtracted from the analysis, 27 Senators (14 Republican, 13 DFL) had bipartisan co-authors on at least 50% of the bills they carried. 
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• Fifteen House members (9 DFL and 6 Republican) had bipartisan co-authors on at least 50% of the bills they authored. 

  • When sole-authored bills are subtracted from the analysis, 43 House members (24 Republican, 19 DFL)  had bipartisan co-authors on at least 50% of the bills they carried. 

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Why We Should Care About Bipartisanship

Bipartisanship is difficult, messy, and subjective. It is also essential. 

We believe that political division in the United States is the overarching problem of our time. If you care about cost of living, mental health, immigration, democracy, climate change, school funding, you should care about political division that can slow or even block solutions that address these issues.

Big topics of justice and freedom and liberty and safety – that we all need to tackle – are off the table if we don’t reverse this trend.

Issues don’t get solved when we’re divided. Instead, power and public policy swings back and forth on a pendulum, from one extreme to another. 

Divisiveness means that issues that didn't used to be controversial are now partisan. Our culture and political system need to incentivize and reward collaboration if we are going to make progress on challenging problems. 

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