Yes 4 Minneapolis asks judge to intervene again on ballot language for policing proposal

The political committee behind a proposal to replace the Minneapolis Police Department asked a judge on Tuesday to halt the city's efforts to revise the wording that will appear on the ballot.

Terrance W. Moore, an attorney for Yes 4 Minneapolis, argued in a 12-page court document that the revised wording city officials are slated to debate Wednesday is too similar to wording in an explanatory note a judge struck down late last week. The note lists additional details of the proposal and appears below the primary ballot question.

In an interview, Moore noted that the judge's order instructed the city to "remove the Explanatory Note." That's "not revise, not rewrite, not restate," Moore said.

The Minneapolis City Attorney's Office said it will address the group's request on Wednesday. Hennepin County Judge Jamie Anderson has scheduled an emergency hearing for 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, 45 minutes before a committee meeting where city officials are scheduled to discuss new ballot language.

All of them are operating under a tight timeline. The city faces a Friday deadline to finalize ballot wording and submit it to the county.

The proposal to replace the Police Department has become a central issue in the November elections, which are drawing national attention and money as people wait to see how the city will fulfill a promise to transform public safety following George Floyd's murder.

Yes 4 Minneapolis gathered signatures earlier this year to place a proposal before voters that would clear the way for city officials to replace the Police Department with a new public safety agency.

The group is embroiled in a legal fight with city officials, who are tasked with writing the precise question that will appear on the ballot and presenting it in a neutral way.

Last month, city officials approved ballot wording that asks voters if they want to amend the charter "to strike and replace the Police Department with a Department of Public Safety that employs a comprehensive public health approach, and which would include licensed peace officers (police officers) if necessary, to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety."

For the first time in memory, they also included an explanatory note listing more details about the proposal. Among other things, they noted that the plan would eliminate the requirement to have a minimum number of officers based on population and said the mayor would not have "complete power" over the new agency's operations.

Yes 4 Minneapolis argued the city didn't have authority to include the note and that the language it chose was "misleading." The city countered that it did have that power and the wording closely matched the actual proposal.

Anderson on Friday ordered the city "to remove the Explanatory Note from the Ballot Question." She concluded that the city did have the power to include an explanatory note, but said the wording city officials chose was "problematic." She noted the explanation was longer than the ballot question.

City officials began working on new ballot language, but Moore argued that the new version is too similar to the old one and suffers from the same problems.

A comparison "makes it clear" that the city "attempted to simply shift and restate the same 'problematic' and improper language this Court struck as an error," he wrote.

Moore asked the judge to instruct the city to submit the original ballot question without the explanatory note to county authorities by 4 or 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The City Attorney's Office, in response, accused Yes 4 Minneapolis of "once again asking the Court to put insufficient ballot language before the voters in the upcoming election."

Moore also argued the city has run out of time to meet the deadline for submitting ballot language to the county auditor, who must then submit it to the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office. "There will not be time to challenge any language approved on the very day it is due," he added.

The City Attorney's Office said it "fully expects" to meet the deadline.

The matter is slated to come before the City Council's Policy & Government Oversight Committee on Wednesday and before the full council on Friday morning. If they approve the language, it heads to Mayor Jacob Frey. City rules give the mayor five days to review the council's actions, but he can act faster if he wishes.

City staff must send approved language to the Hennepin County auditor, who faces an 11:59 p.m. Friday deadline for electronically submitting materials to the Secretary of State's Office.

Hennepin County officials said in a statement that the process "is a fairly simple one" and "takes a few minutes."

"With the Minneapolis City Council meeting slated for the morning on Friday, Hennepin elections staff is not particularly concerned about meeting this requirement."

Liz Navratil • 612-673-4994