# EXTRA SUPER UNANIMOUS ## Two Parties, Two States, One Voting Record — and a Ballot That Offers a Choice About Two Percent of What a Legislature Does *Format: mailed fist. Advocacy, undisguised, for an inside audience. The fist is bare; the chain mail is the footnotes. Companions: [[Essay_5000_Unanimous]], [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], [[Essay_5000_The_Same_Woman_Twice]].* --- Tomorrow, Minnesota Republicans and Wisconsin Democrats vote in primaries their parties describe as opposite choices, and the front-runner in each field has spent her entire legislative career voting the same way as the front-runner in the other.[^1] Not similar. The same — on 454 consecutive roll calls, in two chambers, in opposite jerseys, without a single exception between them. Test it on the same bill in both states. Minnesota's CROWN Act reached the House floor on January 11, 2023 and passed 111-19; Lisa Demuth voted yes while nineteen Republicans voted no.[^2] Wisconsin's CROWN Act was co-authored by Francesca Hong.[^3] Both texts define race to include "braids, locs, and twists," verbatim, because neither woman wrote either one — the national model act did, and it shipped to fifty capitols with the definitions pre-drafted.[^4] The Republican and the socialist landed on the same side of the same sentence because the sentence was assigned to both of them. That is not one lucky pairing. Run the like-bill test across the record and it holds every time. Opioid response: Demuth broke with thirty-four members of her own caucus to fund an epidemic advisory council; Hong voted 96-0 for a state opioid data system.[^5] Health-profession licensure, veterans money, police standards and police funding, new state boards and councils — six bill families, two legislatures, opposite parties, both women yes.[^6] Now the scale. Every recorded floor vote of both careers has been pulled and parsed: 2,557 in the Minnesota House, 806 in the Wisconsin Assembly, against the chambers' own published tallies. **Four hundred fifty-four were final-passage roll calls on which not one member of the chamber voted no, and Demuth and Hong voted yes on all four hundred fifty-four.**[^7] Demuth is recorded in the affirmative on 333 of Minnesota's 344 and in the negative on none.[^8] Hong is recorded in the affirmative on all 121 of Wisconsin's, with no absences at all.[^9] Read what they ratified. Licenses. Boards. Certifications. Credentials. Grant programs. Appropriations to institutions that already existed. And then read the negative result, which is the indictment: **in all 454 votes, across two states and eleven years, not one bill reduced a license, eliminated a board, shrank a standing appropriation, or narrowed an agency's jurisdiction.**[^10] The ratchet clicks one direction and it clicks unopposed — in a DFL trifecta and in a 67-67 tie, under a Republican filter and a Democratic veto pen, with a socialist and a Republican Speaker voting for it on the same afternoon. The two candidates ratifying it are the two most prominent politicians in the upper Midwest without a college degree. Demuth holds none on any public record.[^11] Hong's Blue Book entry has read, every session she has appeared in, "attended University of Wisconsin–Madison."[^12] Neither has ever cast a recorded vote against the expansion of a state licensing, credentialing, or certification structure.[^13] The women whose whole political appeal is that they made it without the credential have a perfect joint record of making the credential more necessary for everyone behind them. Their dissent does not disturb any of this, because their dissent is decorative. Demuth broke with her caucus 68 times in 2,428 recorded votes; Hong broke with hers 59 times in 799. **Not one of those 127 defections changed the outcome of a vote.**[^14] In eight years Demuth has never joined a nay bloc smaller than eleven members, and her only two solo votes were procedural motions rather than positions on a bill.[^15] Hong has never once been the only Democrat voting her way.[^16] On November 9, 2023, she came closest — one of two nays in a ninety-nine-member chamber on a polling-place bill — and the Assembly Journal records what happened next, on page 446: *"Representative Hong asked unanimous consent to be recorded as voting 'Aye' on the previous question. Granted."*[^17] Across forty-seven journals, 123 members asked to change a recorded vote. Exactly one of them was hers. That one. The heaviest evidence against the machine comes from inside it. Hong told the public in July 2022 that Wisconsin Republicans gave hearings to more than 75% of their own bills and under 2% of Democratic bills; PolitiFact checked it against nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau memos and rated it **True** — 76.5% against **1.9%**.[^18] She proved the filter, on the record, with a fact-check to show for it. Then she voted aye on 121 of 121 bills that survived it. And in March 2021 she asked the question this entire file answers: *"What is the difference in electing a Democrat versus a Republican, if in such a detrimental moment for the APIDA community, their silence and complacency is the same?"*[^19] Demuth supplied the mirror in June 2025: *"My Democrat colleagues always focus on race or gender, and in this case they chose to completely ignore it because I'm a Republican."*[^20] Two women, two parties, one deposition. Both describe an instrument. Neither declines its use. In places the record is not merely unread but unreadable. HF729 left the Minnesota House 134-0 in April 2021 as a bill "providing for a new name for an advisory council," came back from the Senate as the civil-unrest funding package, and repassed 107-25 with **all twenty-five nays cast by Democrats and not one Republican voting no**.[^21] The state's vote pages display each bill's *current* description, not the one members voted on, so a published unanimous roll call can describe legislation the chamber never saw.[^22] Wisconsin's problem is simpler: three of every four laws enacted in this period cleared the Assembly on a voice vote, with no names taken at all.[^23] So here is the choice on tomorrow's ballot. On girls' sports, universal school meals, and red-flag orders, these two women are genuine opposites, and the campaigns are about those three things.[^24] On the licensing, credentialing, boarding, certifying, granting architecture that constitutes the actual output of both legislatures, they are one candidate with two names, and no one is running against it. Both parties will call tomorrow a referendum on direction. It is a referendum on the two percent. The other ninety-eight percent was settled unanimously, years ago, by both of them. --- ## Footnotes [^1]: Minnesota Secretary of State, "Primary Election" (August 11, 2026 state primary). https://www.sos.mn.gov/elections-voting/how-elections-work/primary-election/ · Ballotpedia, "Wisconsin gubernatorial election, 2026 (August 11 Democratic primary)." https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin_gubernatorial_election,_2026_(August_11_Democratic_primary) [^2]: Journal of the Minnesota House of Representatives, 6th Day, January 11, 2023, p.128: "H. F. No. 37, A bill for an act relating to human rights; adding a definition of race to the Minnesota Human Rights Act… The question was taken on the passage of the bill and the roll was called. There were 111 yeas and 19 nays as follows." https://www.house.mn.gov/cco/journals/2023-24/J0111006.htm · Demuth in the affirmative: https://www.house.mn.gov/Votes/Details?SessionKey=300&BillNumber=HF0037 · The 19 nays, all Republican, as printed: Burkel, Davis, Dotseth, Fogelman, Franson, Garofalo, Grossell, Heintzeman, Hudson, Joy, Kresha, Mekeland, Niska, Schomacker, Schultz, Swedzinski, Torkelson, West, Wiener. [^3]: Wisconsin Legislature, 2021 Assembly Bill 141, introduction list (Hong among the introducing co-authors). https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2021/related/proposals/ab141 [^4]: Minnesota: 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 3, amending Minn. Stat. §363A.03 — "'Race' is inclusive of traits associated with race, including but not limited to hair texture and hair styles such as braids, locs, and twists." https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/2023/0/Session+Law/Chapter/3/ · Wisconsin: 2021 AB 141 — "'Protective hairstyles' includes hairstyles such as braids, locs, and twists." https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2021/related/proposals/ab141 [^5]: Minnesota HF400, March 18, 2019, passed 94-34 — opiate product registration fee and the Opiate Epidemic Response Advisory Council. Demuth voted yea against 34 Republicans; the Republican caucus split 18 yea / 34 nay. Journal: https://www.house.mn.gov/cco/journals/2019-20/J0318023.htm · Wisconsin 2021 SB 49, February 23, 2022, passed 96-0 — "requires the Department of Administration to issue a request for proposals… to establish and maintain an opioid and methamphetamine data system." Hong aye. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2021/related/votes/assembly/av0221 [^6]: Matched pairs, both women in the affirmative: health-profession licensure (MN HF3516 dentistry licensure, scope of practice and fees, 134-0, https://www.house.mn.gov/Votes/Details?SessionKey=302&BillNumber=HF3516; MN HF637 health-profession background checks, 127-0; WI AB 255 rural pharmacy practice grants, **99-0**, https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/related/votes/assembly/av0174; WI SB 643 graduate medical training grants, 97-0); veterans (MN HF1937, 131-0; MN SF1959, 130-0; MN HF3741, 134-0; WI AB 596/AB 597 homeless-veteran per diem match, 98-0 each, https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2025/related/votes/assembly/av0119; WI SB 810 military funeral honors, 98-0); police standards and funding (MN HF1182 peace officer deadly-force standard, **124-0**, https://www.house.mn.gov/Votes/Details?SessionKey=300&BillNumber=HF1182; MN HF3404 impersonating a peace officer, 134-0; WI SB 449 critical incident mapping grants, 94-0; WI AB 957 internet crimes against children funding, 97-0); new state bodies (MN SF973 U of M rare disease advisory council, 133-0; MN HF70 Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, 128-0; WI SB 462 crisis urgent care certification, 97-0; WI AB 727 new UW–Madison Division of Extension hydrogeologist position, 96-0, https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2021/related/votes/assembly/av0230). Full tables at [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Parts II-A and II-B. [^7]: Full-census parse. Minnesota: 2,557 recorded roll calls across 14 session keys, 2019–2026, from the Chamber Voting System, https://www.house.mn.gov/votes/, cross-checked against the Journal of the Minnesota House, https://www.house.mn.gov/Journals. Wisconsin: 806 recorded roll calls across three bienniums, 2021–2026, from https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2025/related/votes/assembly and the 2021/2023 equivalents. Zero mismatches between parsed member lists and published tallies in either dataset. Of 992 Minnesota passage/repassage roll calls, 344 had zero nays (34.7%); of 525 Wisconsin passage/concurrence roll calls, 121 had zero nays (23.0%). Method and tables at [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Executive Framework and Part I. [^8]: [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Parts I-A and IV. Demuth's career record across the four bienniums: 1,871 yea / 557 nay / 129 not recorded. She is recorded in the affirmative on 333 of the 344 unanimous passage votes and not recorded on the remaining eleven. [^9]: [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Parts I-B and II-B. Hong is recorded in the affirmative on all 121 zero-nay passage/concurrence roll calls, with no not-voting entries among them. [^10]: [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Part II-C. Subject-matter sort of all 454 zero-nay passage roll calls yields six recurring categories — credentialing and licensure; police, prosecution and corrections; veterans and the military; appropriations to existing institutions; new boards, councils, task forces and grant programs; memorial highways and naming resolutions — with no instance of contraction in any of them. [^11]: Vote Smart, "Lisa Demuth — Biography" (no post-secondary degree listed). https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/biography/183728/lisa-demuth [^12]: Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, *Wisconsin Blue Book 2025-26*, "State Legislators," Hong entry: "Graduate West High School (Madison), 2007; attended University of Wisconsin–Madison." https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/lrb/blue_book/2025_2026/030_state_legislators.pdf [^13]: [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Parts II-A, II-B and II-C. No recorded vote by either member against a bill expanding a state licensing, credentialing, or certification structure was located in the 3,363-roll-call census. [^14]: [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Parts IV-D and V-H. Demuth: 68 defections from the Republican caucus majority in 2,428 recorded votes (2.80%); 57 of them are yea votes joining bills that carried by margins far larger than one vote, and the 11 nay defections opposed bills that carried anyway. Hong: 59 defections from the Democratic caucus majority in 799 recorded votes (7.4%); her near-lone nays were cast on bills passing 90-6, 92-4, 94-3 and 95-4. [^15]: [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Part IV-A. Smallest nay bloc joined: 11 (SF4942, 70-11, May 19, 2024). The two solo defections: HF28, February 2, 2023, 70-60, on the question whether the Speaker's decision stand as the judgment of the House (https://www.house.mn.gov/cco/journals/2023-24/J0202017.htm); and HF3402, March 26, 2026, 68-66, the Bahner motion to reconsider the Tabke motion to recall the large-capacity magazine ban from committee (https://www.house.mn.gov/cco/journals/2025-26/J0326053.htm). Neither is a recorded position on a bill. On the recurrence the recall motion failed again, 67-67; the bill was not recalled. The Journal states no reason for her reconsideration vote and no source supplies one; a presiding officer's reconsideration vote is frequently procedural, and no intent is asserted here. [^16]: [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Part V-A. Across 59 defections, Hong's co-dissenters are stable: Clancy on 30 of her 34 small-bloc nays, Madison on 30, Phelps on 23, Cruz on 16. [^17]: Wisconsin Assembly Journal, November 9, 2023, p.446: "Noes – Representatives C. Anderson and Hong – 2. / Absent or not voting – Representatives Donovan and Sapik – 2. / Motion carried. / Representative Hong asked unanimous consent to be recorded as voting 'Aye' on the previous question. Granted." https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/related/journals/assembly/20231109.pdf · The tally of record was never amended: 2023 AB 298 still reads 95-2 with Hong a nay on both the vote record (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/related/votes/assembly/av0120) and the bill history. Systematic review of 47 Assembly Journal dates found 123 unanimous-consent vote-correction entries by all members combined; exactly one involves Hong. The Journal's line does not name the bill, and the two-column layout leaves residual ambiguity about which question it refers to; the nearest preceding question is AB 298's passage. [^18]: PolitiFact Wisconsin, July 26, 2022, rating Hong's claim **True** on two nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau memos: 2021-22 session, 76.5% of Republican-authored bills received a public hearing versus 1.9% of Democratic-authored bills. https://api.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jul/26/francesca-hong/state-gop-only-let-less-2-democratic-bills [^19]: Francesca Hong, "Asian Americans deserve much more than what we were given by top Democrats in Wisconsin," *Cap Times* op-ed, March 23, 2021. https://captimes.com/opinion/column/rep-francesca-hong-asian-americans-deserve-much-more-than-what-we-were-given-by-top/article_68a72fab-eaa5-5f33-97bb-b3a1a097fb7c.html [^20]: *Minnesota Reformer*, "Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth reflects on 2025 session, historic speakership," June 13, 2025. https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/06/13/minnesota-house-speaker-lisa-demuth-reflects-on-2025-session-historic-speakership/ [^21]: HF729: passage April 22, 2021, **134-0**, on a bill whose Journal title that day read "relating to public safety; providing for a new name for an advisory council"; Senate-amendment repassage April 27, 2021, **107-25** — Republicans 63 yea / 0 nay, DFL 44 yea / 25 nay, Demuth yea. Enacted as 2021 Minn. Laws ch. 13. https://www.house.mn.gov/Votes/Details?SessionKey=257&BillNumber=HF0729 [^22]: [[Unanimous_Roll_Call_File]], Part VII-D. The description field on house.mn.gov vote pages reflects the bill's current version rather than the version voted on; HF729 (2021) and HF3825 (2026) both display final-version descriptions that do not match the text passed 134-0 as printed in that day's Journal. HF3825 left the House 134-0 on April 20, 2026 as a crime-victim-notification bill and returned as the health-occupations licensure omnibus, repassing 123-10 and enacting 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 115. https://www.house.mn.gov/Votes/Details?SessionKey=302&BillNumber=HF3825 [^23]: Wisconsin Assembly Rule 76(2)–(3): "Unless a roll call vote is required by the state constitution, by law, or by legislative rule, any question before the assembly may be decided by voice vote… A roll call vote shall be taken… when requested by a member with the support of 15 seconds." https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2025/related/rules/assembly/9/76 · Wis. Const. art. IV, § 20 sets the constitutional floor at one-sixth of those present. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/document/wisconsinconstitution/IV,20 · Fixed-seed random sample of 40 enacted acts per session (n=120), each resolved to its originating bill and Assembly third-reading line: 89 of 120 (74.2%) passed the Assembly by voice vote — 34 of 40 in 2021-22, 27 of 40 in 2023-24, 28 of 40 in 2025-26. Acts indexes at https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2025/related/acts. This is a sample estimate, not a census. [^24]: Girls' sports: Minnesota HF12 passage failed 66-67 on March 3, 2025, with Demuth voting yea and Rep. Harry Niska (R) the lone Republican nay; Niska's motion to reconsider then carried 67-66 (https://www.house.mn.gov/Votes/Details?SessionKey=302&BillNumber=HF0012; https://www.house.mn.gov/cco/journals/2025-26/J0303008.htm). Wisconsin AB 100 passed 51-43 on March 20, 2025 with Hong voting no and Rep. Russell Goodwin (D-Milwaukee) the single Democratic aye; vetoed March 31, 2026, override failed May 13, 2026 (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2025/related/journals/assembly/20250320.pdf). School meals: Minnesota HF5 passed 70-58 on February 9, 2023 on a strictly party-line vote with Demuth in the negative (https://www.house.mn.gov/cco/journals/2023-24/J0209020.htm); Wisconsin's Healthy School Meals for All Act died in committee three times, most recently under Hong's first authorship as 2025 AB 48 (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2025/proposals/ab48). Red-flag orders: Minn. Stat. §624.7172 was enacted through SF2909, which passed 69-60 on April 26, 2023 with Demuth in the negative; Hong co-authored Wisconsin's extreme risk protection order bills in 2021 and 2023, both of which died in committee (https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2021/related/proposals/ab638; https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2023/related/proposals/ab350). #Actors_and_Architects