SAINT PAUL, Minn. (CN) — A group seeking to roll back Minnesota’s restoration of voting rights to felons who have served their sentences told the state Supreme Court Monday they have the right to challenge the law.
The Minnesota Voters Alliance, a nonprofit which has challenged a number of the state's election laws in recent years to varying degrees of success, is seeking to overturn a state judge's conclusions that the group lacks standing and that the law does not violate the state Constitution.
The group is challenging a law signed by Democratic Governor Tim Walz in March 2023 that allows Minnesotans convicted of felonies to vote after leaving prison. Three voters, all involved in the state GOP, joined the alliance's suit.
Anoka County Judge Thomas Lehmann dismissed the alliance's petition in December, finding that the petitioners had not shown they had standing to bring their claims. The taxpayer standing they claimed, Lehmann wrote, required them to challenge “a specific disbursement of public funds.”
Appropriations made by the Legislature to implement the law and educate the public, he found, did not meet that threshold.
“Since practically every law entails at least some public expenditure, petitioners’ expansive notion of taxpayer standing would render the very concept of taxpayer standing meaningless,” Lehmann wrote. “Every taxpayer would have standing to bring a lawsuit challenging any law, for any reason whatsoever.”
Such a condition, he found, would conflict with case law holding that taxpayer standing should be narrow and limited.
Attorney James Dickey of the Upper Midwest Law Center argued for the alliance at the high court that taxpayer standing was more expansive than Lehmann gave it credit for.
“The test announced in McKee is … illegal expenditure or illegal action,” Dicke told the court, citing a 1977 decision that touched on the issue. “It’s a broad standing test. This court has allowed broad standing to taxpayers from McKee going forward.”
He also pointed to the court’s decision in Save Lake Calhoun v. Strommen as evidence that the alliance's chosen mechanism, a petition for a writ of quo warranto, was appropriate — though several justices expressed skepticism, noting that the court hadn’t reached taxpayer standing in that issue.
Assistant Attorney General Nathan Hartshorn, arguing on behalf of Secretary of State Steve Simon, said McKee’s holding was vague and had been clarified.
“There is a more recent decision from this court than McKee on taxpayer standing,” he said. “The In re Pappas case cites McKee, it construes McKee, it explains what McKee means.”
He asked the court to reaffirm Pappas, which held in 1992 that taxpayer standing was only applicable when unlawful expenditures were possible, “on clearer and more explicit terms.” To challenge voter re-enfranchisement, he said standing was available to those who could show a particular injury, like a political party.
The court’s newest judge, Karl Procaccini, said he saw it both ways. “It does seem problematic that there wouldn’t be a way to challenge implementation of an unconstitutional rule,” he said. “On the other hand, it seems like it’s putting the cart before the horse.”
In addition to the standing issue, Lehmann initially found that the voters group and its co-petitioners had not shown that restoring voting rights violated the Minnesota Constitution. They cited a provision in the Constitution which bars people convicted of treason or a felony from voting unless "restored to civil rights." The group argues that this means full restoration of those rights, specifically as described under a statute on felony conviction, was required for felons to be eligible to vote.
Lehmann didn’t agree. “The major premise of this argument is fundamentally flawed. Contrary to petitioners’ argument, Article VII, section 1, does not say ‘restored to all civil rights,’” Lehmann wrote. “Instead, it says ‘restored to civil rights.’ Basic principles of constitutional interpretation require courts to presume that the framers of our Constitution chose language deliberately and used it precisely.”
On the merits of the case before the high court, Dickey pointed to 2023’s Schroeder v. Simon, which affirmed that a statute barring felons from voting did not violate the state Constitution. Rather it left the power to decide if felons could vote to the Legislature, which used that power within a month. That case, Dickey argued, gave the Legislature broad authority to return civil rights, but he said those rights needed to be returned in groups.
Dickey said that while the state Constitution may not require restoration of “all civil rights,” it at least required the restoration of rights in the plural. The constitution, he said, was framed as such.
“The government must act,” Dickey said. “Said act must cause certain events to occur … . A body of rights must be restored before voting rights are restored.” He pointed out that a felony conviction does not always translate to the loss of voting rights. “One cannot be restored to a right one has not lost.”
Minnesota's Hartshorn, meanwhile, faced questioning on a request that the court rule both on standing and the merits of the voting group's case.
“This case has reverberated outside of the courtroom walls,” he said. “Appellants’ arguments have instilled fear, uncertainty and doubt in voters enfranchised by the Restore the Vote Act.” Over 57,000 voters, he said, could see voting in the election as risking their freedom if they didn’t get clarity from the high court.
He sought an order by June 28, when early voting is scheduled to begin in non-presidential primaries for November’s general election.
Several judges expressed skepticism about whether, should they determine the alliance does not have standing, they could reach the merits of the case.
“Wouldn’t that be an advisory opinion? How would we even address that?” Judge David Lillehaug asked.
Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wasn’t sure such an opinion would be necessary. “I think the end result would be that the law says what it says,” she said.
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