Minneapolis Star Tribune, Nov. 15
Limits on ex-felon voting in Minnesota should end
If Florida can eliminate old rules, surely this pro-vote state can follow suit.
The Nov. 6 election results in Florida warrant Minnesota’s attention - and we’re not referring to the races for that state’s governor, U.S. senator and a state commissioner that are undergoing recounts this week. As diverting as that drama might be, Minnesotans should also notice what Florida voters did to restore voting rights to former felons.
The state constitutional amendment that 64 percent of Floridians approved eases what had been one of the nation’s most restrictive barriers to voting by people with felony convictions on their records.
Before the amendment’s adoption, anyone convicted of a crime carrying a prison sentence of one year or greater was permanently disqualified from voting, no matter how long ago their crime was committed or sentence completed. That anti-democratic policy was barring 1.4 million Florida adults - and one in five black Floridians - from the polls.
The change allows those no longer in prison to vote, unless they were convicted of murder or a sexual offense. Even those limits are unjustified for those whose incarceration has ended. Those who have been released to live and work in their communities should be permitted to vote in those communities, too, regardless of their offense.
Criminal voting restrictions are rooted in the racism of the post-Civil War era, when mass incarceration policies in the former Confederacy turned a huge proportion of the freed black population into de facto slave laborers, forever forbidden to vote. Florida wrote felon disenfranchisement into its constitution in 1868. The ugly idea caught on nationally, eventually infecting even slavery-averse Minnesota.
The bar to felons voting in Minnesota statutes has never been as restrictive as Florida’s. People convicted of felony crimes in Minnesota lose the right to vote until they have completed probation and been released from supervision, even if their sentence involved little or no prison time. As of 2011, according to the advocacy coalition Restore the Vote-MN, 47,000 Minnesotans were out of jail or prison and attempting to function as law-abiding citizens, yet were unable to exercise citizenship’s most basic right.
Restore the Vote and its more than 50 Minnesota member organizations have been urging Minnesota to join the 14 states and the District of Columbia that restore voting rights when incarceration ends. Among the virtues of that policy is the end it would bring to confusion about when a former felon becomes eligible to vote. That confusion is responsible for nearly all of the small number of voter fraud cases prosecuted in this state. (Two states, Vermont and Maine, allow felons to vote even while they are behind bars.)
Proposals to end the ban on voting by felons on probation have been introduced in the last several sessions of the Minnesota Legislature and have found some bipartisan backing in the Senate, said Anika Bowie, Restore the Vote-MN’s coordinator. But they’ve been blocked by House Republicans, who controlled that chamber for the past four years.
The prospects for relaxing Minnesota’s felon voting ban appear brighter in light of the Nov. 6 election’s results. A new DFL majority in the state House is expected to be friendlier to the idea, and Republicans have new reason to rethink their opposition. Many GOP voters in Florida were part of the 64 percent majority who cast aside felon voting restrictions. They were registering opposition to their party leaders’ attempts in recent years to diminish democracy in order to win. We suspect many Minnesota Republican voters would concur.
Minnesota is a pro-voting state. That bipartisan sentiment should be reflected in policies that welcome felons back to the electorate when they return to their communities.
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The Free Press of Mankato, Nov. 18
Election: Voters speak again to civility, compromise
Why it matters: The election represented a wave of voter participation and a repudiation of threats to core American principles.
Americans deserve to take a little solace in the results of the recent election. Voters spoke loud and clear. They wanted candidates to put country before party and they sent that message at the voting booth.
The voters seemed motivated by the things that always motivate: overreach by elected leaders and their inability to compromise to solve problems like crumbling roads.
Republicans in the House of Representatives offered plenty of examples. The GOP made dozens of attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, wrongly believing people favored this repeal while they saw millions more of their friends and family finally get health care coverage that didn’t send them into bankruptcy.
Led by President Donald Trump, many Republicans jumped on the anti-immigrant bandwagon with even Republicans coming from moderate traditions like those in Minnesota saying the borders were “porous” and we needed to “pause” refugee resettlement.
Porous is decidedly an inaccurate term for the U.S.-Mexican border. It suggests an increase in illegal immigration. But border apprehensions of people trying to enter the U.S. at the Mexico border have been dropping for some time.
The number apprehended went from 650,000 in 2008 at the beginning of Obama’s term to 191,000 at the end of his term in 2016, a drop of 71 percent, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.
In 2017, it dropped again to 128,000 or by about 33 percent.
Somehow, Americans seemed to remember their own immigrant roots, including in Minnesota, where after German, Swedish and Irish immigration the state was up to 40 percent foreign born, compared to 8 percent today.
And the tax breaks didn’t seem to hold much weight with voters. A CNN survey on Election Day showed 56 percent of those polled said the country was headed in the wrong direction even as the economy was in solid shape.
That one poll was probably the most telling message of this year’s election. The economy, of course, is always important to people in an election. But there was a sense that civility and welcoming also mattered.
The election was a repudiation of a tribalism led by Trump. We hope his followers, now see the indignity of those messages, including a late campaign charge to send troops to the falsely porous border.
It’s a heart-rending thought in a way - that our friendship and our civility mean more than our pocketbook growing in the context of feigned generosity.
It’s also good to see that when our leaders don’t lead with the core principles of our country as their guide, the people will.
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Mesabi Daily News, Nov. 9
Democrat leaders face a rural Minnesota challenge this session
Minnesota is now the only state in the nation with a split-power Legislature following Tuesday’s midterm elections, presenting some real opportunities for lawmakers and Gov.-elect Tim Walz.
It also presents challenges for Democrats gaining control of the House in January.
A Legislature without a majority or supermajority in power can have meaningful discussions on the tough topics. There will be plenty as the state enters session next year: gas taxes, health care, mining, bonding - the list goes on.
It’s seems too idealistic that there will be some sort of harmony in St. Paul right away. Walz will have considerable work bridging divides created by contentious sessions that accomplished little, and separated the parties in power more. There will be growing pains for the new administration.
But that doesn’t mean Walz cannot be successful. While the obvious challenge in front of him is to find middle ground that Democrats and Senate Republicans can agree on, he also faces potential sticky situations in the Dem-controlled House.
Tuesday’s election results clearly showed rural areas of Minnesota are increasingly turning toward Republicans. The 8th Congressional District turned red for the second time in 72 years. Walz’s own seat in the 1st District flipped Republican, and Democratic Congressman Collin Peterson’s 7th District seat is expected to turn when he leaves the post.
More locally, the Iron Range still elected or re-elected Democrats Dave Lislegard in 6B, Julie Sandstede in 6A and Rob Ecklund in 3A. But those lawmakers are facing increased pressure as rural Democrats in a party that many on the Range feel isn’t working in their best interests - especially on the topic of copper-nickel mining.
All of this Walz can relate to and is especially intriguing considering the rural-urban team he has formed with Lt. Gov.-elect Peggy Flanagan. They have a unique opportunity to guide the party back on the right track.
For House Democrats, particularly incoming Speaker Melissa Hortman and those selected to the Natural Resource Committee, they cannot ignore the message sent by rural Minnesota last week. A seven-seat cushion in the House is no reason to read into the results any differently. Lislegard, Sandstede and Ecklund have been and will continue to be good representatives for the Iron Range and its interests.
It would help this region, and their success as lawmakers, if party leaders worked in concert with them on the critical issues to rural Minnesota. Even if means leaving their comfort zone to do so.
Voters in rural Minnesota are continuing to show a powerful voice across the state. The Iron Range and its rural areas sent a strong message Tuesday.
It’s time to listen.
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