Giving Voters A Reason To Bother
"Both parties suck." "Politicians are hopelessly corrupt so nothing good can ever come out of it." "Voting for the lesser evil is still supporting evil." I bet you’ve heard all these little adages before. That one about lesser evils you’ve probably hear from me. The other day, my friend Dorothy, a big shot in the California Democratic Party and a dyed-in-the-wool, lifelong progressive, told me what voters want to see is results, nothing but results. She’s probably right for most voters. So, let’s talk about... Minnesota.
In 2020, Minnesota went for Biden by 7 points. Biden won 6 of the 7 counties with big populations, losing only Anoka County— and by a smidge. Of the 80 smaller, rural counties, Biden only won 7, and mostly just barely. On the same day, Minnesotans reelected Tina Smith to the U.S. Senate. The 4 Democratic incumbents and 3 Republican incumbents were reelected. An open blue seat flipped red. As for the legislature— 66 Democrats and 63 Republicans won seats in the House and 34 Republicans and 32 Democrats won seats in the Senate. A moderate Democrat, Tim Walz, had been elected governor in 2018.
OK, now, let’s look at what happened in 2022. First off, Walz was reelected— 52.3% to 44.6%, although by a closer margin than in 2018. The 3 statewide races— Attorney General, Secretary of State and Auditor were won by Democratic incumbents, although Attorney General and Auditor just barely. All the congressional incumbents were reelected. The big news, though was in the legislature.
The state House saw a net gain of 4 Democratic seats, creating a 70-64 majority. The state Senate was more dramatic. The Democrats flipped the chamber by winning 34 seats to the GOP’s 33— a net gain of 2 seats. 52.2% of Minnesota voters had cast ballots for Democrats in the state House races, as opposed to 47.8% who voted for Republicans. And the Senate was even closer— 51% Democrat, 49% Republican.
Point: the elections were very close from top to bottom. Superficially it looked like a Democratic sweep, which is how the national media reported it. But a case can be made that the races were so close that the Democrats had no mandate. In fact, in most races, the GOP had momentum. And look at these two races:
State Auditor
Julie Blaha (D)- 1,168,185 (47.50%)
Ryan Wilson. (R)- 1,159,750 (47.15%)
Attorney General
Keith Ellison (D)- 1,254,371 (50.42%)
Jim Schultz (R)- 1,233,556 (49.58%)
You might have expected the Democrats to get into a GOP-lite mode and sit still and hope no one noticed them and then hope Biden clobbers Trump in 2024 and sweeps them back into office. But that is exactly not the way the Minnesota Democrats looked at it. They looked at it the way my friend Dorothy does— deliverables. Much like Michigan— which also wound up with a trifecta after the 2022 midterms— Minnesota Democrats decided to show the voters what they could do. “The house speaker, Melissa Hortman, said state Democrats viewed the trifecta as a fleeting window to legislate aggressively. ‘Having Republicans in control of part of state government for the last 10 years and being prevented from doing really anything progressive at all created a lot of pent-up demand to chalk up some progressive victories,’ said Hortman.”
Working with grassroots community activists, Democrats passed laws protecting women’s Choice, unions, renters’ rights and voting rights. “During the same session that the felony re-enfranchisement bill passed, the state passed the Democracy for the People Act, which, among other reforms, allows 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote, establishes automatic voter registration in some state agencies, requires voting materials be available in the three most commonly spoken languages in the state, and penalizes voter intimidation and lies.”
In terms of tenants right, the Judiciary and Public Safety omnibus bill includes 16 pages of changes ranging from a ban on landlords requiring pets to be declawed and devocalized to making it easier to expunge past evictions from court records.
Among the changes:
Landlords statewide must give tenants 14 days written notice before filing an eviction action for non-payment of rent, but cities are allowed to require even longer pre-eviction notices.
Eviction notices are to be removed from court records if the tenant prevails, the case is dismissed, the parties agree to do so or if the eviction is more than three years old. Currently those records remain public for seven years.
Rental owners and managers must include non-optional fees on the first page of the lease as well as in advertisements of rental units.
Owners and managers who want to enter a unit must give 24-hour notice, give a specific window of time and only enter between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., unless the tenant agrees otherwise. The fine for violating the notice rule increases from $100 to $500. Current law requires only “reasonable” notice.
An expanded list of repairs that must be made quickly to include broken refrigerators, air conditioners, serious infestations and non-working elevators.
A minimum temperature of 68 degrees in winter if the tenant doesn’t control the thermostat
Leases can be ended for medical reasons as determined by a medical professional.
A ban on managers and owners requiring declawing or devocalizing of animals if animals are allowed.
Limits on when evictions can result from criminal conduct by tenants or family members off the property.
A requirement that building managers tell renters that they are allowed to request inspections before occupying a unit and upon move out to help resolve disputes over damage deposits. This issue was pushed by University of Minnesota students who said loss of deposits is a significant issue around campuses.
Another provision praised by HOME Line and other renter advocates came in the taxes bill. It would change how the state’s rental tax credit is processed. Before, renters had to send a separate application form in August. It can now be included in state income tax filings in April.
The change for renters with household income of $69,520 or less is expected to bring so many more eligible renters into the program that the Legislature had to set aside $190 million to cover the increased costs of credits for 100,000 additional claimants.
The rental credit is refundable, which means that it can reduce the tax bill of people who owe taxes but also be paid to tax filers who owe no taxes.
Peter Callaghan and Walker Orenstein reported that “If someone built a word cloud of all the DFL floor speeches of all their bills during this year’s legislative session, the dominant words would be ‘transformational,’ ‘generational’ and historic.’… Gov. Tim Walz called it ‘the most successful legislative session, certainly in many of our lifetimes and maybe in Minnesota history. A lot of folks at the beginning were very skeptical that we could get the big, bold vision of transforming Minnesota,’ Walz added. With a DFL trifecta and more money to spend than any Legislature ever— even adjusted for inflation— nearly every plank of the DFL platform was fulfilled. While their surprise majorities were attributed to a campaign built upon abortion rights and democracy following the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, DFL lawmakers and Walz moved forward on dozens of issues beyond those.”
Some of it was due to meeting expectations of DFL coalition members from labor to environmental groups, abortion rights activists and gun safety groups. But much was from pent up demand. For a decade, the DFL and GOP split power in St. Paul: Republicans had House control for all of DFL Gov. Mark Dayton’s second term, and they held the Senate from 2017 through the end of Walz’s first term in 2022. Neither party got all they wanted or even some of what they wanted. What passed then was what could be cobbled together in inter-party negotiations.
…Democrats codified abortion rights, paid family and medical leave, sick leave, transgender rights protections, drivers licenses for undocumented residents, restoration of voting rights for people when they are released from prison or jail, wider voting access, one-time rebates, a tax credit aimed at low-income parents with kids, and a $1 billion investment in affordable housing including for rental assistance.
Also adopted were background checks for private gun transfers and a red-flag warning system to take guns from people deemed by a judge to be a threat to themselves or others. DFL lawmakers banned conversion therapy for LGBTQ people, legalized recreational marijuana, expanded education funding, required a carbon-free electric grid by 2040, adopted a new reading curricula based on phonics, passed a massive $2.58 billion capital construction package and, at the insistence of Republicans, a $300 million emergency infusion of money to nursing homes.
Republicans, of course, are whining about “overreach” and higher taxes, but it will be interesting to see if voters reward the Democrats for their accomplishments next year. And my friend Dorothy? She reiterated that "Democrats need to focus on where they are going-- not how they are going to get there, on outcomes instead of process. For example-- not getting your pay docked if you have to take time off to take your child to the doctor even if it's for a well-baby checkup, being able to afford enough bedrooms to house your family, knowing that the foods you eat are safe to eat, knowing the water you drink is safe to drink, knowing the air you breathe is safe to breathe, knowing that that guy standing next to you is not carrying an AK-15, knowing that if you need an abortion you can get one. Democrats need to tell people what the outcomes will be if they vote for them. They don't need lectures on history. They don't need to know where we once were or how we got where we are today. They need to know what Democrats will do for them now."