St. Paul, MN — House Republicans announced Friday the election of Speaker Kurt Daudt (Crown) as House Republican leader following a caucus meeting Friday morning. Later this month, House Republicans will meet to elect additional caucus leadership, and announce the selection of a Deputy Republican Leader appointed by Speaker Daudt.
"I'm grateful for the overwhelming support of my colleagues to continue as the leader of our caucus," Daudt said. "While we are disappointed at the results of Tuesday's election, we know that Democrats will have a difficult time explaining to Minnesotans two years from now why they broke so many of the promises they made on the campaign trail.
"Despite promising to lower health care costs, they are going to vote this session to increase health care taxes by over a billion dollars. Most Democrats ran only on raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, but they no doubt will push to raise the gas tax and hurt the pocketbooks of millions of low and middle-income Minnesotans. They promised to fix our health care system, but will pursue a MinnesotaCare-for-all scheme that will have devastating consequences for patients across the state who rely on rural hospitals.
"House Republicans will work each day to stand up for the priorities of hardworking Minnesotans, and oppose Democrat efforts to take billions of dollars in taxes out of the pockets of Minnesota families despite our likely budget surplus."
Over the previous four years with Republicans in the majority, Speaker Daudt and House Republicans delivered numerous accomplishments such as significant tax relief including fully eliminating the tax on veterans' retirement income, historic investments in roads and bridges without a gas tax increase, ending the "Last In, First Out" default policy in order to keep the best teachers in the classroom, and stopping Democrats' double-digit health insurance premium increases.