# THE CONSENT AGENDA *Format: 850-word positioning piece. Companion to [[Essay_5000_Unanimous]] and [[Essay_Killshots_Unanimous]]. Built from [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]].* --- Every recorded floor vote of both careers has now been read — 2,557 in the Minnesota House, 806 in the Wisconsin Assembly, parsed name by name against the chambers' own published tallies (https://www.house.mn.gov/votes/; https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2025/related/votes/assembly). Four hundred fifty-four of them were final-passage votes on which not one member of the chamber voted no. Lisa Demuth and Francesca Hong voted yes on all four hundred fifty-four. Neither has ever been the person who said no when nobody else did. Start with how much of legislating this is. In the Minnesota House between 2019 and 2026, **more than one in three bills that reached a final-passage roll call passed with zero nay votes, and nearly half passed with five or fewer** — 344 of 992, and 477 of 992. The rate rises when the majority weakens: it bottomed at 21.4% in the DFL's 70-64 House and peaked at **45.6% in the 67-67 tied House Demuth presides over**. The chamber the country watched as a constitutional crisis was the most unanimous chamber in eight years. Wisconsin's number looks smaller only because Wisconsin hides most of it. Assembly Rule 76 lets any question pass on a voice vote unless a member and fifteen seconds demand otherwise (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2025/related/rules/assembly/9/76). A fixed-seed sample of 120 enacted laws across three sessions found **89 of them — 74.2% — cleared the Assembly with no names taken at all.** Of the quarter that got a roll call, 23% were unanimous anyway. Three of every four Wisconsin laws passed without a single one of ninety-nine members thinking it worth making his colleagues go on the record. Now read what the consent agenda contains. Dentistry licensure, scope of practice, and fees: Minnesota, 134-0. Private detective licenses: 129-0. CPA reinstatement and the repeal of automatic certificate revocation: 134-0. The standard for when a peace officer may use deadly force, in the session after George Floyd: **124-0**. County jailers reclassified as protective occupation participants under the Wisconsin Retirement System "without a requirement that their principal duties involve active law enforcement": 96-0 (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/related/votes/assembly/av0009). A rural pharmacy grant program administered by the Higher Educational Aids Board: **99-0**, a perfect chamber (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/related/votes/assembly/av0174). A new hydrogeologist position at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension, tucked inside an agriculture bill: 96-0. Memorial highways: 131-0, 134-0, 134-0. **In all 454, not one bill reduced a license, eliminated a board, shrank a standing appropriation, or narrowed an agency's jurisdiction.** The ratchet clicks one direction and it clicks unopposed. Hold that against the two biographies. Demuth holds no college degree on any public record (https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/biography/183728/lisa-demuth). Hong's Blue Book entry reads "attended University of Wisconsin–Madison" — attended, every session, no degree (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lrb/blue_book/2025_2026/030_state_legislators.pdf). The two most prominent non-credentialed politicians the upper Midwest has produced in a generation have between them a perfect record of voting to make the credential more necessary for everybody else. Neither has ever cast a recorded vote against the expansion of a state licensing, credentialing, or certification structure. Hong is the one who documented the filter that produces this. She claimed in July 2022 that 75% of Republican bills got hearings in Madison while under 2% of Democratic bills did; PolitiFact checked it against nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau memos and rated it **True** — 76.5% versus **1.9%** (https://api.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/26/francesca-hong/state-gop-only-let-less-2-democratic-bills). She got the machinery fact-checked and then voted aye on 121 of 121 bills that came through it. The famous votes are the small share. In Minnesota's entire 2023-24 trifecta — the PRO Act, cannabis, school meals, paid leave, the ERA, the red-flag law — **exactly three marquee roll calls were strictly party-line with zero defectors**: universal school meals (70-58), Driver's Licenses for All (69-60), and the elections bill (70-57). And the party-line vote is not stable disagreement about a fixed text: **HF1370, the deep-fake sexual images bill, passed the Minnesota House 127-0, then 71-57 on a strict party line with one Republican in the affirmative, then 131-0 — one bill number, seven weeks** (https://www.house.mn.gov/Votes/Details?SessionKey=300&BillNumber=HF1370). The text moves underneath the number: HF729 left the House 134-0 as a bill "providing for a new name for an advisory council" and came back as the civil-unrest funding package, repassing 107-25 with **all twenty-five nays cast by Democrats and not one Republican voting no**. HF3825 left 134-0 as a crime-victim-notification bill and came back as the health-occupations licensure omnibus. Neither woman has ever paid for a dissent. Demuth defected from her caucus 68 times in eight years and **has never joined a nay bloc smaller than eleven members**; her only two solo votes were procedural motions. Hong defected 59 times and **has never once been the only Democrat voting her way**; the single occasion she came close — 95-2 on polling-place closures — the Assembly Journal records her asking unanimous consent, seconds later, to be recorded as voting aye instead (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/related/journals/assembly/20231109.pdf, p.446). Not one of their 127 combined defections changed an outcome. Two percent of what a state legislator does generates coverage, and on that two percent these two women are opposites. The other ninety-eight percent is unanimous, expands every year, appears on no campaign website, and is the only bipartisan achievement either state has managed without interruption since 2019. Tomorrow both states vote. The consent agenda is not on either ballot. It never is. #Actors_and_Architects