Reader Letter: Pat Yoedicke, SD60 resident
It is mid-January 2025, and we are witnessing, real-time, for the Senate District 60 (SD60) seat, what could happen in the 2025 Minneapolis municipal elections unless voters decide otherwise: A tiny group of DFL office-holders will try to select our elected officials. How? By giving “DFL endorsement” to the candidate they prefer, assuming that voters will simply follow their lead.
SD60 covers NE Minneapolis, the UMN, Cedar-Riverside, and Prospect Park. Kari Dziedzic had represented us since 2012, until she tragically died from ovarian cancer on December 27, 2024. Three days later, on December 30, Governor Walz called a special election to fill the seat. Candidates had one day, until December 31, to file. There would be a special primary on January 14, and the DFL and GOP primary winners would compete against each other on January 28. But because SD60 is solidly DFL, whoever wins the DFL primary probably will get the seat.
Eight DFL candidates filed. They have been contacting voters like me, introducing themselves, gathering endorsements from prominent individuals. It was shaping up to be a fair and lively DFL primary, until a handful of SD60 DFL party officers placed their thumbs on the scale, by scheduling a January 8 meeting to grant “DFL endorsement” before the primary. Unlike individual endorsements, party endorsement is extraordinarily valuable. There is the brand: “I am THE DFL-endorsed candidate”. There are the rules: Everyone holding a DFL party office is expected to support the “endorsed candidate” and is prohibited from supporting competitors. There are the resources: Only the endorsed candidate has access to the party’s voter database; DFL officers can use DFL mailing lists to pump out messages for the endorsed candidate. In Minneapolis, including SD60, “DFL Endorsement” severely tilts the playing field.
This is why, on January 8, I submitted this letter to the DFL SD60 Central Committee: “Hello. I live in Senate District 60. I understand that at the SD60 meeting tonight you may consider making an endorsement in the upcoming special election to fill the Senate seat of Kari Dziedzic. I write to express my strong conviction that you should NOT make any endorsement until after the special primary election. Please be true Democrats and let the people speak first!” I abbreviated the points made by candidate Peter Wagenius in his January 4 open letter, which four other candidates eventually signed: Wait until after the primary to endorse. Let the voters decide.
The SD60 DFL Central Committee chose differently. Of the 32 people who voted on January 8, 23 decided to give the prize to Doron Clark, the former SD60 DFL Chair. He had resigned from the voting body just days earlier. In full disclosure, I support Wagenius, who is endorsed by former Mayor RT Rybak, AG Keith Ellison, and many others. Indeed, most DFL candidates have support from prominent DFL officials – there is no uniformity in whom to support. Despite these differences of DFL opinion, 23 people gave the party’s endorsement to Doron Clark. They ignored residents like me, ignored 5 of the 7 candidates begging for a fair process, ignored others with prominent DFL roles.
They are trying to give the seat to their person, and only we voters can stop them. Are we going to allow 23 people, out of the tens of thousands in SD60, to decide who represents us? I say no, and I urge you to join me. If you live in SD60, be sure to vote in the January 14 primary, after investigating all the candidates. They are knocking on doors and leaving literature, their websites are live. Use your own judgment. Never relinquish your own decision-making to others.
And consider this a rehearsal for what may happen in a few months, as campaigns for Minneapolis City Council and Park Board get underway. All over Minneapolis, small groups of party insiders will try to use their positions to give “DFL endorsement” to the people they choose, assuming we voters will blindly follow. We do not have to blindly follow. We can choose who we want.
Sincerely, Pat Yoedicke, SD60 resident
I agree wholeheartedly. I have been a delegate to DFL caucuses and conventions for years/decades. Every year, I see this. Last year, I asked a young delegate why she was supporting the person she was — and it scared her. She couldn’t answer the question, fled, and avoided me the rest of the day. I thought, Oh, now I get it. They support candidates someone told them to, not because they decided it for themselves. The entire point of the process and conventions is to question and vet the candidates. But the “company line” is so strong from elected officials and party officials that there is no conversation and no discussion by the “regular” people. A party endorsement means automatic election in Minneapolis. I am disgusted every year and swear I won’t do it again. But I continue to believe that I should have a voice.
DFL is no longer a party of the people but rather a party of those few people the DNC elite chose to pick for us . Ken Martin and his cronies hijack democracy and control power and policy . Our job is to educate the masses on this decay of democracy and show up at primaries so a few over involved insiders don’t continue to rule .
DFL has been disappointing for years. I wrote to Ken Martin when most of the Mpls City Council got on the stage at Powderhorn Park w the big defund the police sign, I wrote public safety and defunding the police will split the Mpls Dems. No response.
Now they post on X:
SD60 DFL
@SD60DFL
Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 14 we have an opportunity to send our DFL-endorsed candidate
@doronclark to the special election on Tuesday, January 28, and then the next day, the MN senate.
And along with a link to find your polling place:
SD60 DFL @SD60DFL 1h
Find your polling place to vote for Doron Clark in tomorrow’s primary here:
Not only put their thumb on the scale, they double down putting it on social media.
Really disappointing.
This is why, and probably the only reason why, most of these DSA “hate a cop” candidates got onto the Mpls City Council. A relatively small group of individuals GAVE the job to them when they got THAT DFL endorsement, ALTHOUGH these same candidates had also SIGNED on, and heartily so, with the DSA’s platform of defund/dismantle/ abolish, etc…when they got their DSA endorsement. This is why, as a lifelong Democrat, I now refer to myself as an independent, because, at least as it relates to local DFL matters, I am not aligned.
Pat deftly explains how DFL insiders are curtailing democracy to further their own agendas.
Why did Walz allow only a single day for prospective candidates to enter the race?