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So I've been thinking about what's wrong with this @AsteadWesley article about police politics in Minneapolis. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/us/politics/minneapolis-defund-police.html
He says it's about an idealistic city council running into the "legislative process" and "public opposition." The real story is of a progressive city council super-majority, trying to do the right and popular thing, and unelected appointees of appointees blocking democracy.
In 2015, a Minneapolis police officer shot and killed Jamar Clark, and thousands of residents, including first-term council member Lisa Bender, protested outside the Fourth Precinct. Council President Barb Johnson scolded them. https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2015/11/wake-police-shooting-split-among-minneapolis-council-members/
In 2017, with historically high turnout, progressives unseated three moderate incumbents on the city council, including Johnson, who was a scion of a 40-year mini-dynasty. https://www.startribune.com/as-barb-johnson-leaves-old-style-minneapolis-city-government-goes-with-her/467595653/
The victorious candidates ran on addressing racial injustice generally, and many on transforming public safety specifically.
(Just want to hammer this point home)
After the killing of George Floyd, this progressive council was pushed forward by Black Visions Collective, other activists, and members of the public who had recently changed their minds. In the mixed poll results, you could see support for drastic changes to the police in Mpls:
In response to community pressure, council drafted a charter amendment to remove legal roadblocks to transforming public safety. If approved in a citywide referendum, it would begin a yearlong community engagement process to restructure city government.
Some dissented. Cathy here actually sued the city for proposing the amendment. She wanted City Council to hold some community meetings before they... spent a year in community meetings about public safety. (Cathy happens to professionally peddle community meetings)
Cathy is the ED of the Jordan Area Community Council, a neighborhood organization that receives funding from the city. The city's publicly-funded neighborhood orgs consistently and drastically over-represent white homeowners.
http://www.jordanmpls.org/5-years-with-cathy-spann/
http://www.jordanmpls.org/5-years-with-cathy-spann/
But it wasn't Cathy's lawsuit that brought down the charter amendment: it was the city's Charter Commission, an unelected body of 15 white ppl appointed by appointees of the governor. The NYT article says the unelected commissioners "had concerns" that it didn't meet "guidelines"
This is different from what they were saying during the meetings. Instead of focusing on legal and procedural issues of getting a clearly-worded question in front of voters, the members frequently weighed in on what they thought was good policy. https://twitter.com/WedgeLIVE/status/1288227054261907456
Who gets to decide what's good policy? Sometimes it should be the people through direct democracy, most of the time it should be elected representatives, but probably not this unelected, unrepresentative group, one of whom ran for CC and lost in 2013
Some on the Charter Commission wanted to amend the proposal, to send /something/ back to City Council so that the people could vote on it and make progress in policing. But they lost. https://twitter.com/WedgeLIVE/status/1288637826351771648
So now, we have a resentful police force that has the trust of 33% of Minneapolitans, still enshrined in our city charter. Substantial change will require wooing a power-hungry, unrepresentative commission and then getting out the vote in an off-year election. That sucks!
It wasn't the elected politicians who failed, and it wasn't the activists who failed. It's the structure that failed.
