Minnesota Supreme Court explains why it allowed votes to be counted on Minneapolis policing question

The Minnesota Supreme Court allowed votes to be counted on a proposal to replace the Minneapolis Police Department because the phrasing of the question on the ballot "fairly communicated" the measure's "essential purpose," according to a new opinion issued Wednesday.

The 16-page document, written by Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea, provided new insight into why the state's high court chose to intervene in a case that threatened to toss the key policing question from the November ballot just hours before early voting was set to begin.

The proposal was the dominant issue in the first municipal races since George Floyd was killed by police. Voters last week rejected it by a 12-point margin. For nearly two months leading up to the start of voting, the city was embroiled in lawsuits as proponents and opponents argued over how to fairly present the question to voters on the ballot.

A political committee called Yes 4 Minneapolis wrote the proposal, which would have changed the city's charter by removing the requirement to maintain a Police Department with a minimum number of officers. It would have then required the city to create a new agency providing "a comprehensive public health approach to safety," the details of which would have been fleshed out by the mayor and council.

Days before early voting was set to begin, Hennepin County Judge Jamie Anderson issued an order preventing elections officials from counting votes on the proposal, saying the wording of the ballot question "does not ensure that voters are able to understand the essential purpose of the proposed amendment." The Supreme Court overturned that decision hours before early voting was set to begin and promised to follow up with an opinion outlining how it arrived at that decision.

In the new opinion, Gildea stopped short of endorsing the phrasing city leaders selected. She wrote that had the proposal passed, the effects may have been "dramatic, massive and extensive," as argued by former Council Member Don Samuels, nonprofit CEO Sondra Samuels and businessman Bruce Dachis, the three Minneapolis residents who brought the latest legal challenge.

"The City may well be criticized for failing to call out these impacts in greater detail in the ballot language," Gildea wrote.

But, she said, state law provides the legislative body — in this case, the City Council — with the power to decide how to present the proposal on the ballot, and the standards for overruling their phrasing are high.

"We will defer to the judgment and discretion exercised in drafting ballot language if the question fairly communicates the 'essential purpose' of the proposed amendment, is not misleading or unreasonable, and is not a palpable evasion of the requirement to submit the proposed amendment to voters," Gildea wrote. "We conclude that the current ballot language meets these standards."

There was no dissent. Justice Margaret Chutich recused herself from the case. Kyle Christopherson, a spokesman for the court, said at the time that "the reason for recusals are never revealed."

Liz Navratil • 612-673-4994