Active in politics , Mealey served as a justice of the peace and a probate judge in Wright County . Previously identifying as a Republican , he followed 1872 presidential candidate Horace Greeley into the breakaway Liberal Republican Party as he ran for and won election to the Minnesota House of Representatives . Running thereafter as a Democrat , he won election the following year to the Minnesota Senate , serving in the 1874 and 1875 legislatures . He declined a nomination to run again in the 1875 election , but was a delegate to the 1876 Democratic National Convention and returned as a state senate candidate in 1877 . He won , but in 1878 Minnesota switched to four-year terms for senators , sending him into another election that November . He was reelected and served through 1882 . During his term he was instrumental in passing a new tax code that so improved on prior law it was known as the " iron-clad tax law "
1876 Democratic National Convention
1876 Democratic National Convention
Tobias Mealey