Minneapolis can vote on future of policing, state Supreme Court rules

ST. PAUL, Minn. (CN) — In a last-minute ruling Thursday evening, the Minnesota Supreme Court put the future of Minneapolis’ embattled police force back in the hands of voters, overruling a district court judge’s finding that the language of a ballot question seeking to restructure the department was insufficient to inform voters of the amendment’s purpose. 

The eleventh-hour ruling was brief, with Chief Justice Lorie Gildea promising a postponed breakdown of the court’s analysis in order to ensure ballots were ready for the start of voting on Friday. The court, less Justice Margaret Chutich, overturned a Tuesday ruling by Hennepin County Judge Jamie Anderson granting injunctive relief to a former city council member, his wife, a nonprofit CEO and a real estate developer who sought to halt a proposal to remove control of the police department from the sole control of the mayor and excise a minimum-staffing requirement. 

At issue is a city charter amendment seeking to remove the charter’s requirement for a police department under the sole control of the mayor, with a minimum staff proportional to the city’s population, and replace it with a public safety department under the control of the city council which may or may not include sworn police officers. After the initiative garnered over 20,000 signatures from supporters, the city council set the language for the specific ballot question before placing it on the ballot. 

Anderson sided with the trio of opponents, Don and Sondra Samuels and developer Bruce Dachis, three times over, requiring the council to rewrite the ballot question twice before the city’s eventual appeal to the Supreme Court. The first draft, she found, was insufficiently specific as to the amendment’s purpose. The second, passed after the council overrode a mayoral veto, was found to be too specific and overly wordy. 

In her final order, Anderson simply said that “the proposed language is insufficient to identify the amendment clearly, it does not assist the voter in easily and accurately identifying what is being voted on, and it does not meet the requirement of identifying the essential purpose of the amendment, all of which will mislead voters and make it unjust.”

Anderson did not herself identify what she believed the purpose of the proposed amendment to be in her order. The Samuels have maintained that the amendment’s true purpose is to defund or abolish the police department entirely. Advocates for the amendment say that while it leaves that option open, most of its supporters envision a department that includes police officers. 

The high court granted review to the city of Minneapolis on Wednesday morning, and attorneys on both sides, plus the organization formed to petition for the charter amendment, Yes 4 Minneapolis, scrambled to brief their positions in time for the court’s expedited review. 

Gildea wrote that “the challenge to the ballot language ‘does not meet the high standard’ that we set in Breza v. Kiffmeyer,” citing a 2006 case centered around a ballot question seeking to amend the Minnesota Constitution to dedicate more revenue from a tax on the sale of motor vehicles to public transit rather than highway purposes. 

Yes 4 Minneapolis celebrated their victory on social media, joined by local activist groups including the Black Visions Collective, which played a central role in the 2020 George Floyd protests, and by some local politicians.

“The City Attorney’s Office is pleased with the Supreme Court’s order tonight, which comes as early voting begins for the municipal election in Minneapolis tomorrow morning. Now voters have the opportunity to make their voices heard on this ballot question,” said City Attorney Jim Rowader in a statement.

"The votes will count!" Mayoral candidate Kate Knuth tweeted. "The people deserve to vote on this public safety amendment."

Elections in Minneapolis are set to be contentious this year, with Mayor Jacob Frey facing several challengers seeking to set themselves apart from his pro-police stance. Frey has aligned himself firmly with the Samuels and with the department in his campaign, while his two major challengers, Knuth and Sheila Nezhad, have both thrown their support behind the proposed amendment. 

Each of the city’s 13 council seats are also up for grabs, and Council President Lisa Bender announced earlier this year that she was stepping down, putting the council’s top spot in play. In the waning days of riots and protests of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, Bender led a veto-proof majority of the council in announcing an intention to reimagine the police department, a coalition that has decayed steadily in the intervening months.

Several other abolitionist council members are seeking re-election, and races for their seats along with the council’s anti-reformists have been cast by many as a referendum on the future of the city’s policing.

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