In previous election cycles in Minneapolis, mayoral candidates wanting to get an early start — the filing period doesn’t begin until July — would often announce their campaigns at the beginning of the year. By mid-March, there would normally be a healthy crop of candidates.
In 2013, after Mayor R.T. Rybak announced he would not seek another term, candidates such as Betsy Hodges, Mark Andrew, Jackie Cherryhomes, Gary Schiff and Don Samuels were all already in the race by March.
And in 2017, when Hodges, then the incumbent, ran for reelection, it was a similar story: By March, Nekima Levy Armstrong, then-state Rep. Raymond Dehn, Tom Hoch and Jacob Frey had all jumped into the race.
This year is different. By Valentine’s Day, only Frey and one other candidate had declared. By mid-March, that number had increased to five — Frey, activist Sheila Nezhad, Philip Sturm, Jerrell Perry and former state Rep. Kate Knuth — though only two of those candidates, Frey and Knuth, have experience in political office.
Why has a once sought-after gig become a job few people seem to want?
Let’s start with the obvious: There is famously little power associated with the job under Minneapolis’ system of governance — at a moment when the city is facing some of the more complex challenges in its history.
Amid a spike in crime and a pandemic that has killed hundreds of residents and devastated the city’s restaurant, retail and service industries, the city is under national and international scrutiny for the killing of George Floyd, the subsequent unrest from Floyd’s death — and the underlying factors that led to those events.
[image_caption]Sheila Nezhad[/image_caption]
But the city’s troubles go beyond the last year, and speak to the challenges of the role — and to the patience among voters for those who hold it. Floyd was the third high-profile killing involving Minneapolis police officers in the last six years — Jamar Clark was killed in 2015, Justine Damond in 2017. Both of those cases happened under then-Mayor Hodges, who didn’t even make it to the final two candidates in the city’s 2017 ranked-choice voting election.
Frey has had his own challenges. The city has seen a spike in crime on Frey’s watch, including a 21 percent jump in violent crime in 2020 compared to previous years. And he has faced criticism for his response to Floyd’s killing, both by those who thought he was slow to respond — especially for his decision ordering police to abandon the Third Precinct before it was burned down — and by those who don’t think he’s been aggressive enough on reforming the Minneapolis Police Department. One of the most memorable moments of his tenure came when, after telling a group of protesters outside his home that he did not support the abolition of the police department, he was shouted down.
[image_caption]Kate Knuth[/image_caption]
Instead, Frey started the year with $230,000 in campaign funds facing a field that, until early March, included a single challenger with a website.
Now, the year is beginning to look more like 2009, when then-mayor R.T. Rybak was running for a third term and many prospective candidates chose against mounting a challenge, said Jeanne Massey, executive director of FairVote Minnesota, an advocacy group for ranked-choice voting. “There hasn’t been that flurry of candidates,” she said.
The uncrowded field has even been a surprise to the candidates. Nezhad, who works with Reclaim the Block and was the lead organizer behind “The People’s Budget,” which called for $53 million in cuts to MPD, thought more people would be in the race at this point, even if she understands why many might be reluctant to jump in.
“I think what it is is the arc of justice and the collective weight of history is upon us right now in Minneapolis,” she said. “It’s a big moment, to me. I think that people have been cautious about running because there is so much on the line right now.”
Knuth, who has cited the paucity of candidates as one of the reasons she got in the race, says she also understands why other candidates aren’t eager to run.
Even without the added challenge of running amid a pandemic, the prospect of putting yourself out there at a time when the city is dealing with so much collective grief and trauma — from the pandemic and the killing of George Floyd — is enough to make anyone hesitate from leaping into the race, she said.
“These are not small things,” said Knuth. “It’s not just putting your name on a ballot. I mean, you could do that. I’m coming into this race with a seriousness of purpose about the moment and about what we actually need to do.”
“It’s not surprising things are feeling the way they are. It’d be easy to step away. But I think of myself, and I want to be the kind of person who steps forward with a sense of responsibility.”
Candidates need to present real plans for not hiring or continuing to employ violent police officers. Chauvin should never have been a training officer with his history of complaints and should have been investigated long before this happened.
I would put my money on Frey getting re-elected. He has the advantage of ranked choice voting, which eliminates the need to get a majority to win and provides a huge advantage to incumbents. In the former top-2 primary system, the opposition to the incumbent would coalesce around the other candidate. With RCV, money, volunteers, and ultimately votes, are spread around to multiple candidates.
Establishment figures in both political parties are the main opponents of ranked choice voting. It is being used in Maine and increasingly in cities. NYC voters overwhelmingly supported ranked choice voting in future elections, and it is the establishment NYC Democrats who have voiced the most opposition to it, since it reduces their political power.
The people who oppose it do so because its anti-democratic and doesn’t do what it claims. When we got it enacted in St. Paul, the court actually cited and fined the pro-RCV group for deliberately misleading voters.
We’re stuck with it, and so RCV will prevent consensus by taking away the guarantee of a majority winner, and will benefit the “establishment” incumbents.
Many actually argue those who know they can’t get a majority take advantage of it. Many do not understand how it works and are surprised to find that someone who garnered so few votes can win. Also some states that undertook rank choice are now reconsidering it.
One of the selling points of RCV was eliminating the cost of runoff elections, which at the time apparently didn’t have great voter turnout. I have always favored runoffs and the voter turnout no longer appears to be an issue.
The best use of RCV would be in general elections with multiple major parties on the ballot, like the 2002 governor’s race with Republicans, Democrats, Greens, and the Independence Party running visible campaigns. The mayoral races in Minneapolis and Saint Paul already had a runoff system in place, so RCV really doesn’t seem necessary. Tinkering with the existing system, like allowing candidates who received a certain percentage of the vote to advance to the general election (rather than the top two) makes more sense to me.
Like applying for captain of the titanic when the lifeboats are being lowered.
This makes me very glad to be an old man – too old to actively seek any sort of political office, despite the example set by Mr. Biden. The Mayor’s Office at this point (I’ve lived in the city 11 years) looks increasingly to me like a lose – lose proposition, with few prospects for any mayor, new or old, to end up pleasing anything approaching a broad spectrum of constituents. Those who are seeking the job are more brave than I – or foolhardy. Not sure which. That, of course, is the challenge of politics, and of working in public policy – you can never please everyone, and sometimes, you can’t please anyone.
I’m looking forward to hearing from the candidates. We need a better municipal government.
Mayor Frey does a good job for the very, very, very (did I mention “very”) limited powers the Mayor of Minneapolis has been given by the City’s Charter. A Township Clerk in any one of Minnesota’s Townships holds more power and authority than the Mayor of Minneapolis. Like Hodges before him, she didn’t really grasp that persuasion was the only tool in the toolbox for a Mayor and that only works when everything is copacetic.
The City Charter needs a major revision to balance the power of city government; by granting power and authority to the Mayor, and allow him or her to fix problems in Departments that typically report to a Mayor. I no longer live in Minneapolis, but I wish I did. I live back in Greater Minnesota, but I have suggested to my very Conservative Legislators that in turn for the State helping the City, that the City be made to choose a form of municipal government so that an Executive is actually in charge when it comes down to where the buck stops.
Right now, beyond nominating an appointment or doing marketing/promotion for the city; the Mayor can’t do anything. People get mad and upset, they see the Mayor as the person in charge, except in the case of Minneapolis, the Mayor isn’t in charge at all. The Mayor can ask things of City Departments, but they can all tell him/her to jog on when they like, and they often do as in the case of the Police Department.
The City Council and the Charter Commission hold all the power, and run things like committees would, where its often better to do nothing instead of something or to do something that sounds drastic it catches headlines but in reality turns out to be some non-binding resolution that doesn’t change a thing – or – they do something that ends up with the Commission saying, “Wait, we haven’t given you the power to do that.” or the Council says, “Oh, we tried, but we don’t have that specific power to make a change.”
Charter Commission can work in some instances, but in Minneapolis, it’s just too large and diverse of a city to have a Charter Commission that meets so often and interferes. The City Council is too small in size, there should be more districts and no more charter commission. In short, let the Council legislate and let the Mayor lead.
Excellent points! The City Charter needs to be completely revised.
As far as I know (and someone correct me if I’m wrong), the MPLS police have still not ratified a labor contract, and THAT contract and it conditions are the fastest path towards meaningful reform. Most of the problems, like Chauvin’s career and assignments were actually dictated one way or another by the labor contract. My point being, if the Mayor of MPLS and the city council REALLY want reform, that’s where they start… all else is little more than theatrics and window dressing.
Meanwhile, Fry seems to be a decent mayor, if no one else want’s the job good for him. His job is going be extremely difficult for the next few years. I don’t know what if anything he can do about it, but Downtown MPLS is likely entering a severe crises triggered by the collapse of the building and development bubble as well as corporate depopulation. If they’re not careful they’ll end up like downtown St. Paul.
The Mayor of Mpls and City Council negotiate the police union contracts, blame them for the mess that is resulting in a crime wave. After 50 years of Democratic control, you have a city half burned down, you have a call to defund the police (followed by 6.8million more tax payer dollars to bolster the same police dept), you have a downtown where no one goes, deficits getting worse, a school system that graduates 50% of students not proficient in math, reading and writing, generally you have a mess.
We are currently being led by a Mayor who wanted to give “peaceful protesters” room to grieve. That led to 300 businesses being burnt down, a police precinct being torched and a no man zone in part of his city….. Mabe a change in direction is needed?
Let’s try to be serious people Joe, as if we’re having a responsible conversation. The mayors may negotiate the Union contracts, but the city council has to ratify them, and this is NOT a unique characteristic of MPLS or St. Paul. The riots were NOT caused by Frey’s attempt to give people space to grieve, they were caused by Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck until Floyd was dead… a detail you “Blue Lives Matter” guys keep leaving out of the conversation. The problem with Police union contracts, racism, and brutality and discipline are nationwide and decades in the making, regardless of Party affiliation or mayors, this isn’t unique to MPLS and Frey.
Police brutality and lethal and excessive force are NOT liberal principles. If we have to find an ideology that supports excessive and lethal force, we can only end up talking about Fascists and guys like Donald Trump.
I think what Joe was saying is that the Democrats who run the City Council are the ones who signed a union contract that allowed Chauvin to keep his job, despite several complaints before George Floyd, and I would have to agree. If the contract doesn’t allow for removal of aggressive and dangerous officers than the City Council failed at its job.
I would also say that Minneapolis has been on a downhill slide for some years now, well before last year. 10 years ago my wife and I would go downtown to concerts and sports events and everything was completely fine but it’s different now. I had an in-law coming into town from a foreign country and my wife and I decided it would be best not to bring them to downtown because there might be quite the culture shock for them to see people openly using drugs, getting drunk, urinating in public places, fighting and aggressively panhandling. I’ve been working downtown for over a decade in this last stretch and finally started parking closer to work because I was tired of being accosted on an almost daily basis, even at 6:00am. It’s not as bad as parts of say Detroit, Richmond or KC I’ve been through but it’s not good either and it’s definitely changed in the last 3 or 4 years.
Interestingly, police unions have gained their present power by demagoguery and exploiting fears of crime. This has resulted in union contracts that give the bad apples a free pass, and have allowed for a culture that discourages the good apples from doing anything about it.
If you think it has anything to do with Democrats’ traditional support for organized labor, you’re very wrong.
I don’t think it’s the Democrat’s support for organized labor, just simply the way the contract was written. The City Council is the one that agreed to the contract and if the contract allows the bad apples a free pass, then that’s on them.
And yes, there always is a lot of “think of the children” and “the criminals will take over” rhetoric which isn’t helpful but it’s the City Council’s job to look beyond soundbites and if they aren’t capable of doing that, then to me that’s a sign they aren’t capable of doing their job correctly. The fact that “disband the police” was a public statement by one of the council members probably is indicative to where their priorities lie, which to me seems like soundbites. Even Obama criticized that sort of rhetoric. They could have easily said something along the lines of “we want to unburden the police from having to deal with mental health and social service issues by directing some funding toward civilians who are trained to handle these situations. That will allow the police to focus on the areas of public safety for which they are trained.” Same meaning, different words. How many officers do you think would be on disability leave for PTSD if they had said the above, rather than “disband the police?” What I see from the City Council is that they are more interested in making it look like their doing something (for instance, trying to amend the city charter to “disband” the police by a hard deadline and having absolutely ZERO plan for what to replace it with,) rather than doing the hard work of actually affecting change. My 2 cents, though.
“The fact that ‘disband the police’ was a public statement by one of the council members probably is indicative to where their priorities lie, which to me seems like soundbites.”
A soundbite generated by one of thirteen. That is a long way from unanimity, or even consensus.
The problem with soundbites is that they are conducive to intellectual laziness. There is no room for context or consideration of what may actually have been meant.
“They could have easily said something along the lines of . . .”
And perhaps, they did. We don’t know, because it got lost in the soundbites.
“How many officers do you think would be on disability leave for PTSD if they had said the above, rather than ‘disband the police?'”
Police officers are claiming disability due to PTSD caused by hearing someone say “disband the police?” If they are that sensitive, they shouldn’t have been police officers in the first place.
“What I see from the City Council is that they are more interested in making it look like their doing something (for instance, trying to amend the city charter to ‘disband’ the police by a hard deadline and having absolutely ZERO plan for what to replace it with,) rather than doing the hard work of actually affecting change.”
That was, to put it politely, poorly thought out. Now, it is being used as an excuse to sweep the whole idea of a thorough reform of law enforcement away, because a few people said something that the TV news people said was bad.
Only the incurably naïve or those enamored of authoritarianism think the Minneapolis PD is not in need of some serious rethinking. To shrug our shoulders and say “Welp, no one should have said defund. Forget the whole thing” is not just perpetuating the problem. It is aggravating it.
Yeah – we should have a serious conversation about it. You are right, the council ratifies the contract. But you have a council that is going further and further left – some close to socialist by what they support and are activists for. The council is actively hostile to the MPD. More and more people are not wanting to go to Minneapolis for anything and now no one even in the city feels safe. The riots were not caused by Chauvin’s awful actions. It was people doing wonton destruction and whole scale looting in the name of protest.
The mayor is the leader of the city but unfortunately the council holds nearly all the apples. Frye is not in a good position but still is weak. This past year has shown the utter lack of influence the position of Minneapolis mayor has. It is up to the residents to decide what kind of future they want. At the current rate, Minneapolis will continue on its severe downturn.
“The council is actively hostile to the MPD. ”
I don’t understand. First, there is railing about how the present union contracts were negotiated and ratified by Democrats on the City Council, then we hear that the City Council is made up of pernicious Bolsheviks who are bent on destroying law enforcement in the city because why?
Given the widely held perception that the Minneapolis Police Department is out of control and acting more like an occupying army than a unit of public servants, perhaps a mild antagonism is appropriate.
Thank you RB. What we’re seeing here is the jumble of incoherent contradictory “arguments” that always flows out of Republican/Conservative debate gamers. So now they’re trying to blame union friendly Democrats who ratify the contracts that protect dangerous and homicidal cops for being anti-cop. Whatever.
Serious people with honest intellects will easily recognize the fact that these contracts were never “liberal” ideas, in fact we’ve been denouncing them for decades. Moreover, we don’t blame one party or the other for something that BOTH parties have promoted and condoned for decades. Limited intellects typically struggle with complex problems, and this is a complex problem.
The problem with militarized police forces that are hostile and alienated from the communities they serve has flowed out of the Nixon’s Law and Order program. The idea that these issues are the product of some kind of “leftward” swing is simply facile. Murderous cops and racists militarized police forces are NOT leftwing policies or agendas. And nothing THIS city council or Mayor did created THIS crises. Show us the one of the few cities that prevented widespread destruction and violence and I’ll show you Baltimore… run by Democrats who ordered their police out in normal uniforms rather than military riot gear. Whatever.
Again, it’s like you guys want us all to pretend we didn’t see the first part of the movie where cops started beating, profiling, and killing people decades ago. We would be stupid to do that. Yeah, Democrats and Republicans alike share the responsibility this. This hot mess was inherited by Mayors and city councils all over the nation regardless of Party affiliation.
The Council is hostile to MPD? I think you have that backwards. MPD is hostile to Minneapolis residents. If the murder of George Floyd was an isolated incident with MPD, you might have a leg to stand on with that argument.
Half the city is burned down? Dramatic much? That’s just not true.
As an answer to the headline, does the candidate actually have to live in Minneapolis? That would explain a lot.
Like most political positions in the 21st Century United States, being mayor of Minneapolis or any city is a crappy job. The only people who want this kind of job are too often exactly the people who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near it.