Minneapolis City Elections Are Attracting National Attention
Jim du Bois 00:00
Dialogue Minnesota...conversations about the issues that matter to you. I'm Jim du Bois. Municipal elections typically don't attract much attention outside of the city where they are being held. That's not the case, however, for this fall's Minneapolis mayoral, City Council and Park Board elections, which include three controversial charter amendment questions, one of which would replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety. Talk of reforming policing in Minneapolis began in earnest following the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020. Proponents of the charter amendment say it would enhance public safety by offering alternatives to a police response in situations where people are experiencing a mental health or housing crisis. Opponents say the proposed amendment is too vague, and that no tangible plan exists regarding how public safety would be addressed should the amendment pass. The controversy over the future of policing in Minneapolis is reverberating throughout the state in the wake of a spike in violent crime in that city and elsewhere in Minnesota. Some Democrats fear that the controversy surrounding police reform will cost the party votes in the 2022 midterm elections. This week on Dialogue Minnesota, Hamline University Political Science Professor and University of Minnesota Visiting Professor of Law David Schultz, discusses the Minneapolis city elections and the impact they may have far beyond the city limits. Professor Schultz, welcome back to Dialogue Minnesota.
David Schultz 01:36
Thanks for having me again on the show. And thanks to the listeners.
Jim du Bois 01:39
Early voting has already begun in Minneapolis, and voters will elect the mayor, City Council, and Park Board, and also vote on three charter amendments. We'll get into these races and the charter amendments a bit later. But first, let's talk about the impact of George Floyd's killing on this election. Given the steep rise in crime in the city, what do you think voters will be more concerned about: police reform or public safety?
David Schultz 02:06
I think that in some sense is really what the million dollar question here because there's no question after George Floyd's death, and now we can say murder because there was a conviction in that case there, is that people were very much concerned about race and policing, all about what was a perception that that the police were out of control, that they really need to do something to bring more alternative ways of providing law and order and peace and security to the city. But then at the same time, as we've seen over the last, I'm gonna say year, year and a half, crime rates have accelerated across the United States, including in Minneapolis. And now, I think we've got two competing different sort of views at this point. One, on the one hand, is how much reform can we do, how much can we really move away from a traditional policing model versus to what extent do we still need to have police out there performing a lot of the functions, especially at a time, you actually pointed out, where violent crime and other types of crimes are increasing? And that's really what we're going to find out, you know, what the, you know, with the election returns, is that are the reformers, are they going to carry the day? Or is there perhaps somewhere out there almost a Richard Nixon silent majority out there, who are going to push back on it. Polls that we've seen so far are suggesting some very close elections, and a very evenly divided city.
Jim du Bois 03:35
The charter amendment that's attracting the most attention is question number two: should Minneapolis replace the police department with a new Department of Public Safety? Both sides on this question have brought lawsuits over the wording on the ballot. One judge ruled in favor of the yes side, and one judge ruled in favor of the no side before the state Supreme Court stepped in. Can you walk us through the legal fights over this amendment's wording? And why was there so much back and forth between the amendments advocates and opponents?
David Schultz 04:05
Wording matters. That's the simple answer here that even though we may think that absolutely everybody in the city of Minneapolis knows that this amendment is on the ballot, exactly what it's going to do, I think is a matter of of a lot of debate and a lot of confusion at this point. So, for a lot of voters, they're looking to see exactly what the amendment and perhaps what the explanation is, in terms of what's going, what it's supposed to mean. Now, take us back to just a very short period of time after George Floyd died or after he was killed. We had what, if I remember correctly, nine City Council members, you know, in a park all declaring that they wanted to defend the police department. We saw signatures gathered with the idea of saying let's for the advocates, let's actually reform the police. And the reason why I say that is that for many people, the, what this amendment is about is what, it's changing the the city charter to what, to defend the police. That's how it was originally described. That's what many people think it's about. That's what nine council members said it was about. So, on the one level, it's being depicted as that. However, if you actually read the amendment all's it does is removed some mandatory language in the Minneapolis Charter that requires there to be a police department, removes language about the minimum level of policing, and simply says that city council gets to decide on matters of public safety. If this was the end of the story, we could say, that technically speaking, the amendment does not defund the police. All's it does is say City Council gets to make the call. However, given the fact that it was described as the defund the police, and given the fact that for many, nobody knows what city council would do, if it's given us the authority, and who's going to be on city council next year, people are left wondering what does this amendment really mean? And again, for people who have been pushing for the amendment, they have not put out a clear proposal saying this is what it means. And so we're left with kind of saying, okay, it was originally described as defund police. Now it's something else, what exactly is it? That's what makes it so confusing. No, one's really quite sure what it really means. On the most simplest level, it's just about what, taking away the charter amendments and giving city council more authority to address public safety issues. And that's why I think the fight's over the language because I think the two sides are trying to maneuver the language in a way to game the system to their advantage.
Jim du Bois 06:56
If the amendment is defeated, would that send a signal that police reform is not likely to happen in Minneapolis anytime soon?
David Schultz 07:05
Possibly. I mean, what's interesting about this amendment, or this charter amendment, it's not just an amendment for Minneapolis. As we know George Floyd's death took on, you know, national, if not International, sort of fame here. I think Minneapolis is being viewed as a test case. A test case on police reform across the United States, and were this amendment to fail, I think many people would interpret it as saying that what, at the end of the day, the public wants some reform, but it's very much still concerned about law and order issues. And I think it's going to be difficult to figure out, what's the window for reform? What what are we looking at here? Are we talking about reducing the number of police? Are we talking about changing their functions? Reform isn't impossible, but it's not going to be clear if it gets defeated in terms of what the public wanted? Was it a vote on the status quo? What does it really mean?
Jim du Bois 08:05
If the amendment does pass, do you foresee a barrage of lawsuits over how the new Department of Public Safety will be structured?
David Schultz 08:13
I first see that if it passes, there'll first be a bunch of lawsuits challenging the amendment itself and arguing that the amendment still was not properly worded. There are rules across the country, including in Minnesota, that require at the end of the day ballot initiatives to be clear, unambiguous and to be of a single subject. And why you have a single subject, you can't be expected to vote yes or no on something that has two different parts to it or something like that. So, I think if it passes, lots of legal challenges first. Okay, assuming those legal challenges are defeated, then I think you're correct. What's going to happen first is there's going to be a, have to be a proposal from presumably, I think, the new City Council and perhaps maybe a new mayor. We don't know that yet next year, exactly what the reform is going to look like. And I suspect those reforms will get challenged in court.
Jim du Bois 09:12
Professor Schultz, you mentioned the photo from the summer of 2020 depicting nine City Council members standing on a platform in a city park and pledging support for defunding the police. As we know, all 13 City Council seats are up in this election. First of all, how much do you think a stance on defunding the police will determine who gets elected? And second, is there a scenario where question number two about establishing a Department of Public Safety actually passes but some of those on the council who support it are voted out of office?
David Schultz 09:47
I think that's a likely scenario. We've already seen...the latter is a likely scenario. We've already seen for example, Councilman Ellison, who has been one of the strongest proponents of this, what, he failed to get get his party endorsement, you know, for running for re election. I think more so than anything else this November, this police funding ballot measure drives the election. In some districts, it's going to be, what, the difference that gets them elected in some districts, it could be very well what, the difference that leads to defeat. It just depends on sort of the politics of a local city council, our local council race or something like that. So yes, there's no question about it. And I can see all kinds of interesting scenarios. One of them that says that, for example, it passes but several council members lose. Or let us say, it loses but one of the more progressive democratic mayoral candidates that supports the amendment passes, you know. It's...and then we also don't forget, we have another ballot measure there that would give more authority to what, more authority to the mayor. So, we can have all kinds of scenarios where where council's given more authority on policing, ballot measure passes, some council members lose, and then the mayor is given more authority in the city. How do we interpret all of that? I have no idea.
Jim du Bois 11:16
Well, this is the perfect segue to the next question, and that is looking at question number one on the charter amendment ballot. The question asks if the city government should change to an executive mayor legislative council structure. Minneapolis, of course, currently has a weak mayor system. How does the current form of city government function? And how would this amendment change the balance of power between the mayor and the council?
David Schultz 11:41
Yeah, right now the best contrast to think about is between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Minneapolis is essentially a weak mayor government. The mayors really don't have that much authority. I think of mayors in Minneapolis as more having the bully pulpit. They're good cheerleaders. But the really the bulk of the power in the city resides in the city council, unlike in St. Paul where the mayor has pretty extensive powers, powers of veto, and really a lot of budgetary powers. And what this proposal is doing is suggesting in Minneapolis, a movement towards as you pointed out a more traditional strong mayor model, I'll say a model close to what we see in St. Paul, for example. And this would change the balance of power in the city. This would move the mayor from being again somewhat more of the bully pulpit, somewhat ceremonial, to having more more authority in the city. And so, a scenario could be again where we have a a strong mayor system comes into place. This ballot measure says that council has more discretion over policing matters. Depending on the ideological makeup here, we might very well not see reform. They could be at a loggerheads or the reforms would not go anywhere near as far as advocates hope or foes fear.
Jim du Bois 13:06
Why was the Minneapolis city government set up the way it is with a weak mayor system? How unique is the structure to the city of Minneapolis?
David Schultz 13:14
Well, first off, there are other cities across the country that have weak mayor systems. They generally were in cities that were smaller, you know, smaller cities and our older cities. And what's happened over time during the course of the 20th century, especially I'm going to say from the 1930s on post-World War Two, the trend was for larger cities to create stronger mayor systems because why, larger cities generally need more executive control, more executive power. So, I think Minneapolis originally was this way because of what, a fear of too much power for the city, or for the mayor I should say. And as a smaller city at that time, comparatively speaking, to not see the need to have a stronger central authority. And that's what's being sort of asked now, is that as Minneapolis is now over 400,000, I think it's getting close to what it ever was in terms of its largest time, where its peak population is, and it's going to soon, if you look at projections here, projections are it's going to be 450 or a half a million people. It's getting to be a pretty large city. And I think this ballot measure is there because some people believe that the city can't remain governable with what, 13 separate heads. It needs more of a central authority to be able to act.
Jim du Bois 14:37
Mayor Jacob Frye faces 16 opponents, and a poll found only about 35% of likely voters held a favorable opinion of him. Meanwhile, over in St. Paul, Mayor Melvin Carter is heavily favored to win reelection and has seemingly avoided much of the scrutiny Frye has faced. While George Floyd's murder happened in Minneapolis, both cities saw civil unrest and rioting, not to mention both mayor's had to navigate the impacts of COVID and the rising rates of homelessness. How different are these mayor's in their politics, and why do you think Frye has faced greater amounts of criticism than Carter?
David Schultz 15:15
OK, one again, we're looking at two different governing structures for the cities. You know, weak mayor versus strong mayor. I'm also going to argue that in St. Paul, especially in the last 20 years, the DFL, Democratic Farmer-Labor Party has really consolidated power in the city. And again, we're not really seeing any viable competition anymore. It's become more solidly a one-party town than Minneapolis. And I think that speaks to a lot of it, that you get the Democratic Party nomination in St. Paul, for almost anything, and you pretty much are guaranteed, you know, being elected to council or something like that. So, I think it's a strength of the strong mayor system. I'm almost gonna call St. Paul, almost classic old time machine politics, you know, in terms of how it's being able to hold things together. But I also think, in the case of Mayor Carter, you know, St. Paul is a majority non-white city now. Its politics is aligned differently than Minneapolis. And I think Carter has been able to speak to some of those concerns. And we should also point out here, if we talk about policing being an issue, Minneapolis has had decades of problems with policing, of which remember when Jacob Frye won, he beat the incumbent who said she was going to reform police. She was unable to do that. He takes over, now he's potentially vulnerable for it. Versus in St. Paul, the police in the community generally have a better working relationship. So it's not quite as antagonistic. So, I think there's a lot of variables that play out that distinguish the two cities. But it is interesting, that Frye is vulnerable. I mean, he's got a 35% approval. The best thing he has going for him is the fact that what, there is very divided opposition, and even at 35% with rank choice voting, it is still possible that he could win the election even though he's hugely unpopular in that city.
Jim du Bois 17:19
As we mentioned earlier, all 13 City Council seats in Minneapolis are up for election this year. Which of those races are you watching most closely?
David Schultz 17:29
I think the most important bellwether to me is Council Member Ellison's seat. I mean, there's several of them I'm interested in, but that's the one to me. We're looking at somebody, you know, who has really sort of defined and made defunding the police or reforming the police, I think a marquee issue for himself. And I think were he to lose, that would send an enormous signal across the city, and probably across the country, in terms of where voters, at least in Minneapolis, sit on the issue of police reform. So if I'm picking one race, that's the race that I want to look at. But what I should also point out that has really been fascinating, a few weeks ago, what was it NPR, KARE-11, StarTribune, did a poll. And one of the things that I thought was really interesting in that poll that most people missed was that when we looked at the issue of police reform in this charter amendment, more whites as a percentage than Blacks supported the change. And people think that's a surprise. Well, some people are arguing, and this is Dan Samuels, a former council member in Minneapolis, who's saying that what the Black community is disproportionately bearing the burdens of what, of the crime wave, and we need policing. So, that would be something else I'd be looking at is what are the regional patterns on voting that emerged, and I suspect there is a Black-white or a white-Caucasian-non-white Caucasian split in the city, but in ways that I think would surprise most people.
Jim du Bois 19:06
Park board elections rarely make headlines, but this year is an exception. How important are these elections to Minneapolis voters?
David Schultz 19:15
Well, they are important because even though we think well, it's just a park, well, the Park Board yields, you know, millions of dollars for what is really quite, as we all know, a quite gorgeous park system here. But again, there's also been controversies in terms of how the funds have been allocated, the names of parks, questions in terms of whether or not the park board itself is serving the needs of communities of color. And so, what normally would be a relatively sleepy affair is now starting to emerge into also a battle over racial justice, in terms of, again, how the funds are going to be allocated, future parks are going to be sort of maybe renamed or rethought of and so forth. The whole controversy with what changing the name of Lake Calhoun about a year ago to Bde Maka Ska sort of typifies, I think the the conflicts that have emerged with with the parks because normally nobody thinks well, you know, what's really the name of a park mean? It's usually oftentimes just what, symbolic or let's say honorific, but a fight over a park that was named for a slaveholder clearly is eliciting or did elicit lots of anger, and it's carrying over into the Park Board elections.
Jim du Bois 20:32
We'll move on now to charter question number three, probably the least discussed charter amendment on the ballot this year. Question three concerns rent control. Who put this question on the ballot, and why does the city need permission from voters to enact rent control?
David Schultz 20:48
Well, let's start with the latter question is that cities don't have the authority on their own to enact rent control. By state law, they have to get basically a charter amendment to be able to do that. So that's why it's on the ballot. There are many people, and we know this is true, Minneapolis and St. Paul, which also has an amendment on the ballot this November for rent control. The two cities as well as the metropolitan area is seeing dramatic increases in rent because of what, a shortage of rental units. And so, what the Minneapolis proposal would do is to say that the city would have the authority to do rent stabilization or rent control. But again, like with the police reform one, it doesn't indicate what it's going to look like. Across the country, there's about 180 cities in the United States that have some variations of rent control, rent stabilization. They all look different. They all operate slightly differently. We don't know what a city council and a mayor would actually do here in terms of creating rent control. Would it be like in St. Paul, the proposal, a flat cap of 3%? What kind of buildings would it cover? Would it cover only multifamily units? Would it cover ma and pa? We don't know. But this was driven by the community, by people who were concerned about the fact that Minneapolis has certainly not the highest rents of the country, but they certainly have grown dramatically in the last few years, and are taxing both low income, middle income and people of color.
Jim du Bois 22:26
We've talked a lot about Minneapolis voters, but how much could these decisions in this election impact Hennepin County residents as well as residents outside of the metro?
David Schultz 22:36
There's no question there's big implications. Let's just start, for example, with the rent control one. You know that, if depending on if it were to pass it, what it looks like, there is some evidence that red control or rent stabilizations oftentimes lead to what, to conversions of apartments over into condos or to townhouses, or in some cases developers, because they can't make money, move their development elsewhere. Apartments could shift development outside the city of Minneapolis. Same thing with a police funding measure that would this, perhaps, if it were to pass, would it scare some people to leave the city? Would it encourage some people to move in? So, we could have, for both of these alone, they could affect let's say migration patterns where people live, they could affect housing supplies. And then I'm going to sort of take us in a different direction a little bit here. I have a couple of friends who work for, let's say, the hospitality industry in Minneapolis. And they're involved in the business of trying to bring, let's say, conventions and conferences to the city. And my friends have told me that a lot of conventions are looking at what's happening in Minneapolis and saying, well, depending on where police reform goes, and what happens with policing there, are safety issues. You know, we may or may not be willing to bring a convention or bring a trade show or something to the city. And then of course, as we said before, if this ballot measure on reforming police were to pass or to fail, what is the signal it sends across the country about police reform? And as I've speculated, in wondering if it were to fail, does that mean we're in a post-George Floyd moment? That is, whatever we wanted to do after George Floyd has already passed.
Jim du Bois 24:25
Let's stay with the topic for a moment about how the election in Minneapolis might impact elections and politics nationwide. The Minneapolis StarTribune had an article several months ago where City Council Member Lisa Bender who represents Ward 10, was quoted as saying that prior to the 2020 elections, she was having a conversation with someone she called a Democratic operative. And this person said if police reform happens, and it's in the form of the department getting defunded, Minneapolis can be blamed if Democrats do poorly in the upcoming elections. Well, we do know in 2020, despite the fact that Joe Biden won the presidency for the Democrats, the Democrats fared very poorly in many state houses and also in Congress. So, what happens if let's say charter amendment number two is passed, and somehow the talk of forming this Department of Public Safety devolves into a movement to defund the Minneapolis Police Department, as we currently know it? Could this reverberate across the country and become fodder for Republicans who say if you elect Democrats, you could sacrifice public safety?
David Schultz 25:46
It's already fodder. Trump tried to make it fodder in 2020. And I think no matter what Minneapolis does, it's going to be. I mean, look at what's happened in the last few weeks. Governor Tim Walz, Peggy Flanagan have have come out against it. We also, if I remember correctly, I think was it, is it Amy Klobuchar came out against it. And Second District Congresswoman Angie Craig. These are all more, I would say, centrist Democrats worried that they will be tagged with defund the police, and it could hurt their prospects in 2022. And I think Democrats across the country are equally afraid, especially in swing districts, close districts. This could make the difference and hurt them.
Jim du Bois 26:33
David Schultz is a Hamline University Professor of Political Science and a Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. Professor Schultz, always a pleasure to have you on Dialogue Minnesota.
David Schultz 26:44
My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me and have me again some time.