Minnesota House
Minnesota House Credit: MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan

Minnesotans want to make the state’s political campaigns better. They want to end anonymous contributions (dark money), unlimited contributions, dominance by special interests, and gerrymandering. That’s the findings of an October 2020 survey done by St. Cloud State University and commissioned by Clean Elections Minnesota (formerly Minnesota Citizens for Clean Elections).

Dark money disclosure:  Minnesotans want to know who contributes to political campaigns and how much they give. 82% of Minnesotans agreed “all contributions to political campaigns should be publicly disclosed.” Only 13% wanted contributions to remain private.

Contribution limits. A strong majority of Minnesotans want to limit how much wealthy individuals, corporations and special interest political action committees (PACs) give to campaigns. 55% oppose U.S. Supreme Court rulings allowing rich individuals, corporations and PACs to contribute unlimited funds to electoral campaigns. Only 39% support the rulings preventing Congress and state legislatures from passing campaign limits.

Public financing. The majority of Minnesotans think special interest groups have too much influence. 58%, support increased partial public financing of political campaigns to reduce dependence on private funding by special interest groups; 37% oppose.

George Beck
[image_caption]George Beck[/image_caption]
Citizen-driven redistricting. Minnesotans think legislators have inherent conflicts in redrawing legislative and congressional district lines for themselves and their colleagues. 65%, of Minnesotans “prefer the creation of an independent citizens commission to draw those maps.” Only 13% prefer the current approach, in which legislators themselves redraw district lines.

Solutions

Clean Elections Minnesota supports legislation to address each concern:

1) Requiring all political contributions be disclosed to the public; 2) legislative ratification of a constitutional amendment to forbid unlimited political contributions; 3) increased state funding of campaigns to partially offset special interest influence; and 4) creating an independent, nonpartisan citizens commission to draw congressional and legislative district lines.

Clean Elections Minnesota is a nonpartisan nonprofit seeking to improve Minnesota’s government by using education and advocacy to limit the ability of wealthy individuals and special interests to dominate our elections.

Poll findings by SCSU are based on telephone interviews done from 10/10/20 to 10/29/20 with a representative sample of 372 adult Minnesota residents. The margin of sampling error is 6.7% at the 95% confidence level.

George Beck is a former chair of the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, retired administrative law judge, and current chair of Minnesota Citizens for Clean Elections (MnCCE).

WANT TO ADD YOUR VOICE?

If you’re interested in joining the discussion, add your voice to the Comment section below — or consider writing a letter or a longer-form Community Voices commentary. (For more information about Community Voices, see our Submission Guidelines.)

Join the Conversation

5 Comments

  1. What’s the difference between a “special interest” and constituents advocating on a particular issue of importance to them?

    1. I suppose each individual is their own “special interest” but what is meant here are groupings of individuals, businesses, organizations, etc. with a common interest who band together to promote their agenda. These coalitions have an outsized influence in political circles because they control a bigger pot of cash. Whether that is bad or not is a matter of perspective.

      1. “[G]roupings of individuals, businesses, organizations, etc. with a common interest who band together to promote their agenda” sounds like the kind of thing the First Amendment tries to protect.

        The real complaint seems to be money, and not all special interest groups are especially well-financed. Whether special interests are bad or good depends entirely on whose ox is being gored. Someone who thinks the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce is advancing a reasonable, common-sense agenda is apt to think the SEIU is one of the pernicious special interest groups that need to be reined in.

        1. What about media companies who band together with a common “agenda.” Are these “contributions?”

          Do you think Google, Facebook, twitter, and other media companies can tilt and election through the information they choose to report and information they choose not to report?

          1. Is it possible? Yes. Is it lawful? Yes. Should something be done about it? Not unless you are advocating censorship and favor applying these rules to all media outlets, like OneAmerica or NewsMax.

            Doesn’t the citizen have the obligation to apply his or her critical thinking skills to what they see or read, or are we supposed to believe any clown who says something appealing on YouTube?

Leave a comment