Susan Lenfestey is a regular contributor. She lives in Lowry Hill.
Whether or not you got the results you wanted, the recent election was an ordeal. Minneapolis is essentially a one-party town.
Many of us agree on the issues, and we know the playing field isn’t level. How we address those issues is where things fall apart. At a time when we need to be united against the takeover happening at the top, we endured one of the most divisive city elections in recent memory.
Here are a few ways we can do better.
End the caucus system
“We can do better. Minneapolis deserves a system that doesn’t require time, childcare and a how-to manual just to cast a knowledgeable vote.”
Caucuses are an outdated and time-consuming way to select candidates. Almost every state now uses a primary system that makes participation easier. Minnesota — along with a handful of backwater states and American Samoa — remains a holdout.
This criticism isn’t new. In 1995, Secretary of State Joan Growe formed a Commission on Electoral Reform to increase public participation. The commission noted that “many Minnesotans have become estranged from the political process and view its results as unrepresentative of their views. Others believe that the process is too long and drawn out and that the caucuses are held at times that are inconvenient to them. In 1994, fewer than 2% of the eligible voters in Minnesota participated in the precinct caucuses.”
Thirty years later, nothing has changed. Caucuses are still held on Tuesday nights and participation still hovers around 2%. (This year was an exception because of heightened activism.) Procedural rules are confusing, voting is done by a show of hands, and results are recorded by a volunteer with a quill pen. Ok, not, but probably a Papermate. The process is then repeated in slower motion at ward conventions and again at the city convention, requiring delegates to spend a full day selecting candidates.
These systems are run by well-meaning volunteers with a wide range of skills and strong ideological commitments, making shenanigans and mistakes inevitable. Both were on display at this year’s city convention, prompting the state DFL’s Constitution, Bylaws and Rules Committee to rescind Omar Fateh’s mayoral endorsement after reviewing sworn testimony and hundreds of pages of documented irregularities. We can do better.
Reconsider ranked-choice voting
This year, Minneapolis voters faced a ballot with 16 mayoral candidates, five of whom identified as DFL. Most people are busy with full-time jobs and families. Learning about that many candidates is unrealistic. Choosing one is hard; ranking three is harder.
recent commentary in the Star Tribune, Jeanne Massey of FairVote Minnesota argued that ranked-choice voting is working: “Candidates reach beyond their base,” she wrote. “They seek second-choice support rather than demonizing opponents.”
Wishful thinking. The three mayoral candidates who campaigned as a bloc under the slogan “Don’t rank Frey” may not have demonized their opponent, but they were hardly modeling civility. And the Star Tribune’s own data showed that one in five voters didn’t rank candidates at all. They selected only Jacob Frey; a smaller portion did the same for Omar Fateh. Despite good intentions, RCV can be used strategically — even cynically — whether by forming blocs to defeat one candidate or “bullet-voting” for just one. RCV undermines the very goals it claims to advance. Larry Jacobs, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota, has noted that voters who take full advantage of RCV are disproportionately white, affluent and more educated.
Combined with caucuses, RCV’s promise of a more democratic process falls flat when participation requires time, childcare and a how-to manual just to cast a knowledgeable vote. We can do better.
Curb campaign spending
This campaign season, voters were inundated with mailers, flyers and social media ads from the two dominant political action committees: All of Minneapolis and Minneapolis for the Many. Their names may sound similar, but their views and tactics could not be more polarized. All of Minneapolis backed Jacob Frey and other centrist DFL candidates. Minneapolis for the Many supported Democratic Socialist Omar Fateh and other far-left DFL candidates. The former raised more money; the latter raised more vitriol — even issuing a public retraction after making false claims about a donor aligned with All of Minneapolis.
While individuals face legal limits on donations, PACs and IEs can raise unlimited funds as long as they don’t directly coordinate with campaigns. (Full disclosure: I have contributed to PACs in past cycles, but not this one, due to increasing discomfort with IEs.)
It should go without saying that allowing huge sums of money to shape elections is not democratic. One need only look to Washington to see the calamitous results of letting billionaires seize control of government. We can do better.
We can hold party primaries in April and choose among fewer candidates in November. We can build election systems that make voting less time consuming and complicated. We can work to end Citizens United and reduce the role of PACs and unlimited spending. We can resist extremism on either side and acknowledge our shared goals for a lively, livable Minneapolis.
“We all do better when we all do better.”
— Senator Paul Wellstone
