MINNEAPOLIS — Three weeks away from the start of early voting, the wording of the Minneapolis public safety ballot question is still in legal limbo.
Hennepin County Judge Jaime Anderson Thursday heard arguments from competing attorneys in the latest legal challenge, a lawsuit from former city council member Don Samuels asserting that the question on the ballot is misleading because it's too vague.
Here's the question as it will appear on the city ballot this fall:
"Shall the Minneapolis city charter be amended to strike and replace the police department with a Department of Public Safety which could include licensed police officers if necessary, with administrative authority to be consistent with other city departments to fulfill its responsibility to public safety?"
In Thursday's hearing, done remotely via Zoom, plaintiff's attorney Joe Anthony argued the language doesn't clearly explain to voters what would be eliminated from the city charter if the question succeeds. He told the judge the ballot language doesn't make it clear the police department and the chief's position will be eliminated, and that the mayor would no longer have ultimate control over the department.
Anthony said the ballot question language also doesn't tell voters the minimum police staffing requirement --1.7 officers per 1,000 residents -- would also be stripped from the city charter if the question wins the day.
"You won't find that -- any of those four things -- in any of the language," Anthony told the court.
"If those future effects can’t be included in this ballot -- the future effects of no police chief, no police department, no funding to be ensured -- that’s why the question fails to meet Minnesota standards."
The judge also heard from Terry Moore, the attorney for Yes4Minneapolis, the group that led the petition drive to put the question on the ballot. He denied the question is misleading, and cited Minnesota Supreme Court decisions as part of an argument that future effects don't have to be part of a ballot question.
"Mr. Anthony says the ballot question should explain exactly what the ballot question would do. That is absolutely not the law," Moore told the judge.
"If someone wants to vote on the reorganization of the police department there's no question that a reasonable person will look at this ballot question and say, 'Yes I'm voting on a police department public safety department amendment.'"
The Minneapolis City Council tried to add an explanatory note to the ballot, in hopes of clearing up some voter confusion about what a "yes" vote would mean.
Those who support reorganizing public safety in Minneapolis filed a lawsuit contending the city's explainer seemed more like warning. Judge Jamie Anderson -- the same judge hearing the Samuels case -- ruled that the city's explanatory note had to be removed from the ballot.
That left just the original question on the ballot.
The attempt to restructure public safety in Minneapolis is one of many proposed reforms sparked by the murder of George Floyd on Memorial Day of 2020. The proposal stemmed directly from a grassroots effort to defund the Minneapolis police department, which was an idea initially embraced by many council members.
Proponents on the council revised their language from "defund" to "restructure" or "reimagine" policing in the state's largest city. In the meantime violent crime swelled in Minneapolis and across the nation, and the police department's ranks were seriously depleted as officers left for early retirement or riot-related disability claims.
Judge Anderson said she'd take the arguments under advisement and announce a ruling shortly.