When Sen. Julie Coleman started her first term, she watched a fellow senator be removed when she wanted to bring her children to the Senate floor to quickly attend to business.
As that colleague left, she looked at Coleman, now a mother of three, and said, “Good luck being a mom and doing this job.”
“Stories like these scare women away,” Coleman, R-Waconia, said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “Women in particular are demanding this change and for good reason. We saw what our grandmothers and our mothers faced and said, ‘It’s time to speak up.’”
There are many spoken and unspoken rules about business in the Senate chamber. Men have to wear a suit and tie on the floor, and only recently were senators allowed to have drinks — only water — at their desks. Speeches are directed at the front of the chamber, not toward another member — even if off to the side.
Visitors are also prohibited from being on the floor during session, including children of senators.
Members debated and approved a Senate resolution — brought jointly with a DFL lawmaker who has a young child — on Wednesday to change the rule. It was approved on a 41-25 vote that didn’t break neatly along any party lines.
Opponents of the switch argued the chamber is already cramped with members and staff and there is little room to walk up the aisle. Concerns about noise and distractions were raised, too. Critics also said lawmakers shouldn’t get a special accommodation that most workers don’t have in their professions.
In making her case, Coleman said the Senate is not family friendly. She worries it will stop young parents, especially women, from running for office. The Minnesota House formally opened the chamber to family members starting in 2013, but the Senate has remained firm on the issue.
Several attempts were made to tailor the policy to allow only the youngest children rather than leaving it open-ended.
Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, tried to apply it only for children under the age of 1. She said it “gets to the heart of the issue” and matches what the U.S. Senate has done.
That failed as Coleman and others argued they didn’t want an age gap and said other youngsters can’t be left on their own safely or won’t be comfortable without their parents if left in other building offices.
Sen. Liz Bolden, DFL-Rochester, said it comes down to “trusting parents to decide what is best, what is needed.”
Later amendments on capping the age at 5 and 10 also failed.
Sen. Karin Housley, R-Stillwater, said the resolution deserved more thoughtful consideration after being introduced and put toward a vote within a week.
“I feel like it took us 10 years to be able to carry a clear water bottle to our seats. Ten years that was debated, and this didn’t go through any other committees,” she said. “I think this is a very, very serious job. We are debating laws here, so let’s show the institution some respect.”
Sen. Alice Mann, DFL-Edina, said the rule is a barrier to women in the chamber trying to do their jobs.
“The body is supposed to reflect the people, and yet women only make up 37 percent of the Legislature in 2026 because rules like this that keep women from fully participating,” Mann said. “And it was mentioned that it took us 10 years to drink water on this floor, and, Mr. President, just because the Senate moves an inch every 10 years is no excuse to continue to exclude women from doing their jobs fully.”
Sen. Michael Holmstrom, R-Buffalo, did get one change into the plan: to allow staff members of the Senate to bring children as well.
At a press conference, after the vote, Sen. Clare Oumou Verbeten, DFL-St. Paul, said the change is needed and gives Senate parents the flexibility to do their job and care for their children when they need to. She worked with Coleman to build support for the change.
“I had an experience a few weeks ago where my seven-month-old Leo and I were escorted off the Senate floor, and thanks to these amazing moms who are behind me, we worked to change the rules,” she said. And that, she added, will “make sure that’s not going to happen to any other mom, any other parent on the Senate floor.”