Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s Should be Nervous–His Political Fate is Beyond his Control

 Minnesota DFL (Democratic Party) Governor Tim Walz just declared he is running for re-election.  He

should worry.  There is a serious chance he could lose. Minnesota Democrats could also get routed in the 2022 elections.  The unfortunate part for Walz is that he may not be able to do anything to save his campaign. The factors that will determine his fate may largely be sealed and beyond his control.

Walz is in a terrible place 13 months away from the 2022 elections.  Recent polls place his approval rating at below 50%–never a place that an incumbent wants to be.  But it only gets worse.

Walz is in a purely defense mode–also a place an incumbent never wants to be.  A few months ago he could say that his pandemic policies were working and that the state economy was thriving.  No more.  Minnesota is seventh in the country among states with new covid infections and hospitalizations are up to near peak levels. Labor force participation rates are at levels as low as during the peak of the pandemic in 2020.  Supply chain problems and worker shortages are threatening the State’s full economic recovery from the pandemic.  The public has given up on mask mandates and social distancing, and vaccinations are slowing. As cold weather and winter kicks in it is possible for another spike in the pandemic.  And the governor gave away much of his emergency powers last spring to settle the budget.  He has lost the economy and the pandemic as issues to run on.  He has to defend himself.  He lacks a narrative for 2022.

Walz also has a crime problem, much of it not of his doing.  Minneapolis and Saint Paul are seeing record spikes in homicides.  While that is occurring many in Minneapolis want to vote to cut police funding via a ballot initiative.  Mayor Carter in Saint Paul looks hapless regarding what to do after 14 shot and one dead in a bar.  Saint Paul and Ramsey County want to move away from criminal to administrative fines for some infractions.  Ramsey County Attorney John Choi is pushing back against prosecution of some minor offenses.   Ramsey County Commissioners hate Sheriff  Bob Fletcher and have cut his budget.  Democrats look like they are anti-police and soft on crime.  Republicans are tagging Walz and Democrats as the party against law and order.  When people feel insecure, this is not a place to be.

Walz knows crime is a problem for him.  He also knows the Minneapolis police reform proposal is bad politics for the Democrats.  No matter what the ballot initiative actually says, in June 2020 nine  Minneapolis City Council members stood in a park and called for defunding the police. That is what everyone thinks this ballot measure is about, or at least it has been tagged as that.  Winning politics in Minneapolis is losing politics statewide.  Minneapolis is not  the political center of the state.  Working class whites without a college degree are the largest voting bloc in the state. They are Trump people.  They are the Iron Range now, and it is unlikely Walz or Democrats can win this part of the state or rural Minnesota  anymore.  They need big majorities in the Twin Cities, but that may not happen in 2022.

The police reform measure is not even certain to pass in Minneapolis where polls suggest it is unpopular and perhaps becoming less so as the body count increases. If not popular there, imagine how it is viewed statewide and especially in the suburbs, and especially among suburban women in places like Lakeville whom and where the Democrats must win.  Walz, his Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, and Congressperson Angie Craig know the police reform measure is bad politics for them, and probably for all Democrats across the state.  Walz is on the defense with crime and police reform.

Walz is also caught in the middle of his own party which is not united. After George Floyd’s murder, progressives in the party wanted him to take a stronger line on reforming police.  He could not deliver on the legislation they wanted.  Progressives are simply not as enthusiastic for him as they were four years ago.  Conversely, his advocacy for this reforms alienates him from more centrist Democrats and independents–largely those in the suburbs which he has to win.  His coalition is fragmented.

Nationally, Walz is running for reelection when Democratic President Joe Biden has below 50% approval ratings.  With the exception of 2002 (post 9/11), no president has seen his party gain congressional seats in a first term re-election.  Odds are against Democrats holding the US House, it will also be difficult to hold the US Senate.  Walz could be a victim of an unpopular president also facing a divided party and a stalled political agenda.  Democrats are not excited going into 2022, Republicans are motivated.  They smell victory.

Yes, a lot can happen in thirteen months.  Walz could run a good campaign, Republicans could pick bad candidates and have a bad strategy.  Yet right now if I were Walz and the DFL I would be very worried that he could lose, that the Democrats lose the State House of Representatives, and that they are unlikely to take back the State Senate.  This is going to be a more difficult gubernatorial camapaign than many think, especially those located in the Twin Cities political bubble.

What Minneapolis City Council Got Wrong in Trying to Defund the Police (or Personal Politics in the Age of Ignorance)

On June 7, 2020 nine Minneapolis City Council members at a rally announced their intent to defund the City’s police department. On July 28, 2020 President Donald Trump again promoted hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 treatment against FDA recommendations.  Both of these actions are simply the latest examples of how politicians make political promises or policy statements for personal gain and in disregard for facts.  Both are examples of failures of leadership, political pandering, and  point to the problems of personal politics in the age of ignorance.

            Years ago I wrote American Politics in the Age of Ignorance:  Why Lawmakers Choose Belief over Research.  It made two points.  One, policy making should be evidence-based.  Good policy should be constructed on the best available evidence, data, or research available.  Two, so much of policy fails to meet this standard, often because lawmakers willfully ignore the evidence and instead choose to act for personal benefit or at the behest of special interests.  The result is that too much policy fails, public money is wasted, and government is far less effective than it could be.   Refusing to enact evidence-based policy also yields public cynicism toward government and sets reform up to fail.

            Political ignorance is not limited to indifference to scientific or social science evidence.  This is what Donald Trump has done consistently when it comes to  the pandemic.  From the beginning of the pandemic he has been in denial of its seriousness, often disregarding  Anthony Fauci and other experts’ advice when it comes to precautions, such as mask wearing.

            There is also a different type of political ignorance.  This is when  public officials ignore the legal constraints on their behavior  or propose policy abandonment and change without considering the consequences or offering alternatives.  Again, Trump is  an example of both.  Consistently he has made policy statements—such as recently that  he can change or postpone federal elections—when clearly the law and the Constitution say the contrary.  He has also endorsed repealing the Affordable Care Act without providing a viable policy alternative.  The US government is full of attorneys and policy analysts whom the president should have consulted prior to making statements or promises.

            But Minneapolis City Council is also guilty of political ignorance.  Whether defunding the police is a good idea is a matter for public debate.  But how Council has advocated this issue has been a failure.  The first mistake was nine Council members standing in front of a crowd announcing their intent to defund the police.  One problem was that such a policy  position possibly violated the Minnesota Open Meetings Law.  Nine council members appeared to arrive at a final decision on a matter of public policy that was not decided upon in an official meeting.  Some might claim at this rally was only speech making, but the fact that Minneapolis City Council fast tracked their idea to get it on the ballot this November and that they continue to advocate this position suggests that by the time this rally occurred nine of them had already made up their minds on the issue, contrary to state law.

            Additionally, when these nine members spoke they did so without consulting the law.  It seemed as if they were unaware of the City Charter mandating both that they have a police force and a minimum funding level for them.   They also seemed unaware when they proposed an alternative to the police that state law governs peace office licensing and training, that there are state laws regarding collective bargaining and labor unions that might apply, and that there was a recent Minnesota Supreme Court decision that might limit their ability.  Had Council members done their job competently and done their homework—which includes consulting their City Attorney whom they are already paying, they might have realized all this.

            In business and for non-profits in Minnesota and across the country there is something called the business judgement rule.  This rule requires board members to act as fiduciaries for their organizations and that they are required to make their decisions based upon the based available evidence or information.  Ignorance is no excuse;  you cannot fail to do your homework.  This is what at least nine Minneapolis City Council members did, and thankfully  the City’s Charter Commission, as it was supposed to do, served as a check on this political ignorance.

            The other major failure of Minneapolis City Council was its inability or dereliction in offering policy alternatives.  If  police are to be defunded what does that really mean?  There is merit to putting more money into social service and education programs, but what was their proposal?  What was and is their plan to address violent crime in the city?    Some point to  Camden, NJ as a successful example of defunding the police and  crime going down, but was that a result of defunding the police, privatizing it,  or a normal consequence of “what goes up (crime rate) must go down” over time?  We do not know.  A case study of one city proves little if anything and, if it does, what was it that worked in Camden?  Doing some policy research before  major policy overhaul would be good and the failure to do so is another mistake.

            Yes, in some cases crises demand immediate action but that is no excuse for acting without knowing what you are doing.  George Floyd’s death was tragic and something needed to be done.  But his killing did not come out of  nowhere.  Minneapolis’ history of police use of force and racial disparities in education, housing, and criminal justice have been known for years, yet this and previous city councils failed to act.  Dereliction of duty is as much a form of political ignorance as is simply doing something for the sake of looking like one is doing something, especially if there is no evidence it will work.

            There is nothing wrong with advocates who want a revolution and who want to change the world.  They should not necessarily be expected to have the solutions.  But there is a difference between being an advocate and a public official. For the latter, as the Beatles once sang:  “You say you got a real solution.  Well, you know, we'd all love to see the plan.”  Public officials who advocate without a  plan or even worse, without consulting  the evidence of gather the information  necessary to make good choices are simply pandering for personal gain.

George Floyd and the Final Fracturing of the Democratic Party, Labor, and Civil Rights Coalition

            George Floyd being killed by a police officer in Minneapolis is not simply about the death of one Black man. His death also killed  an historic but uneasy alliance among the Democratic Party, labor unions, and the civil rights movement.  The reaction to his death is ending the last vestiges of the historic New Deal coalition that defined progressive politics in American for at least 50 years, ushering in an era where it now appears that the Democratic Party and the civil rights community are at odds with labor and unions.

            Historically, the New Deal coalition from the 1930s that defined the Democratic Party was composed of labor unions, farmers, working class, and increasing people of color.  It was a coalitional party weaving together a variety of interests, primarily focused on economic and class issues. From the 1930s to 1960s it fought mostly for minimum wages, workplace safety, and collective bargaining issues.  The coalition produced significant gains improving the economic lot of its members and Americans in general, helping shrink, as Thomas Piketty noted, the rich-poor gap in America.  This was the Old Left–class and economic focused.

            Yet a valid criticism of this progressivism was the blind eye it cast on race.  Many New Deal programs such as minimum wage laws excluded southern Black sharecroppers, or unions were criticized for excluding Blacks.  The Democratic Party in the South, which dominated that region from the Civil War to the 1960s, was notorious for the White Primary Supreme Court cases where the former fought hard to exclude Blacks.

            Yet many labor leaders, including Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, and A. Philip Randolph, who led an AFL-CIO member union, were there in 1963 with Martin Luther King, Jr at the historic march on Washington, D.C.  With labor’s support, the civil rights movement produced the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and other major legislation.

            But this embracing of civil rights also fragmented the Democratic Party and progressive politics.  Democrats, as President Johnson foretold when signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, would lose the South and they did.  First Barry Goldwater,  then George Wallace, and finally Richard Nixon exploited white racial anxieties regarding the civil rights movement the summer 1967 riots.  Nixon profited from this backlash, producing what the Edsalls called a chain reaction that led to the exit of white working-class America out of the Democratic Party.  Ronald Reagan continued to exploit the race card, and the adoption of civil rights, or identity politics to its critics, by the Democratic Party at the exclusion of class further contributed to the split among the Democratic Party, labor, and the civil rights community.  The emergence of the New Left in the 1960s—focused on racial, gender, and LGBTQ  issues—is often seen as a critical facture point.

            Progressive Democratic Party politics succeeded when it held together labor unions and civil rights.  In Minnesota, the birth of the modern Democratic Party came in 1944 when Hubert Humphrey among others brought the Democratic ad Farmer-Labor parties together.  Together the DFL advanced, especially in Minneapolis, a progressive economic agenda but it did  not put as much emphasis on race, not surprising for a state and city overwhelmingly White until recently.  The DFL often gave lip service to civil rights issues, but Minnesota is a state  with among the worst racial disparities in the nation for education, economics, and criminal justice.  But with a rapidly diversifying population and a growing Black population,  Minnesota but especially Minneapolis was changing.

           Minneapolis became the picture of contemporary Democratic Party politics today.  It is socially liberal, headed by a Millennial Democratic mayor and a 12-person city council, 11 of whom are Democrats one a Green.  But the DFL of Minneapolis and Minnesota is not the party it was.  Farmers have left for the Republican Party, and even before Floyd’s death  in many parts of the state labor too has left.  For those who are white, well-educated, and at least middle class, it is a wonderful place to live.  But despite the progressive rhetoric,  Minneapolis was a tale of two cities, with the one for the poor and people of color not so wonderful.

Floyd’s alleged murder by a white Minneapolis police officer turned the city into the center of the “defund the police,” with nine of its councilmembers supporting this proposal.  Floyd’s death is about the hypocrisy on race in America, even with Democrats. But equally fascinating is how a Democratic Party city is going after the police union whom it blames for a history of officer shootings and use of excessive force against African-Americans.  Minneapolis’ police chief announced he would no longer negotiate with the union.  Minnesota’s Democratic Governor also locates much of the blame with the union.  Former Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybek sees the union as an obstacle to reform, and even other labor unions, such as the AFL-CIO are calling for the current head of the police union to resign.   In Minneapolis and across the country police unions are seen by members of the civil rights community as hostile to civil rights reform.

               George Floyd’s death is perhaps the final fracturing of the Democratic Party,  labor, and the civil rights supporters.    Maybe this split needed to happen.  But as it does it bodes a dramatic turn in  party politics that complicates the electoral map for Democrats and progressive politics going forward.  Smart politicians such as Donald Trump see this opportunity and will surely exploit it in the 2020 election.