Zack Stephenson, ’10, Elected Minnesota House DFL Caucus Leader
No shenanigans: In rise to House DFL leader, Stephenson praised as pragmatic policy wonk
As they plumbed the depths of negotiating a state budget with an evenly split Minnesota House, Speaker Lisa Demuth and Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman hatched a “no shenanigans team,” selecting two lawmakers they each trusted to get a budget bill unstuck.
“There are times that you pull in the resources that we have,” Demuth told reporters amid budget talks in late May. “And we sent in the no shenanigans team.”
One team member was Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, a septuagenarian lawmaker with a long-held reputation for mastering policy details. The other was Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, just 41 years old and hailing from a district where he had just won reelection by less than 1,000 votes.
On Monday, the House DFL caucus announced that Stephenson would replace Hortman as DFL House leader. The move comes as DFLers press for an assault weapons ban following the fatal shooting of Hortman in June and a deadly Minneapolis school shooting in late August.
“The only reason that you are talking to me is that Melissa Hortman was killed in an act of gun violence,” Stephenson said in an interview.
Whether the Legislature meets in special session this fall to tackle gun control, or waits to convene in February, the House will likely be in a 67-all tie between DFLers and Republicans. Stephenson (and Demuth) will be bound by the same powersharing agreement House members hashed out last session.
Stephenson is a noted Hortman protégé, serving as a 20-year-old campaign manager in 2004 when she first won election to the Minnesota House. Here is what else to know about Stephenson:
His district is historically Republican
District 35A, which encompasses parts of Anoka and Coon Rapids, was for 16 years represented by Republican Jim Abeler. When Abeler successfully ran for the District 35 Senate seat in 2014, another Republican, Abigail Whelan, took his place.
Stephenson flipped that, running for the Minnesota House in 2018 as “a father, prosecutor and lifelong resident of the northern suburbs.”
He graduated from Coon Rapids High School in 2002 and came back to the area after graduating from the University of Chicago law school, serving as a prosecutor for Hennepin County.
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