In what can best be described as an exquisitely executed three-cushion bank shot, activist Cara Letofsky and her spouse, Jim Davnie ran the table electing themselves, their friends and supporters to the top leadership positions of the Minneapolis DFL Senior Caucus. This election took place at the Senior Caucus annual zoom meeting on March 15, 2024. Newly-elected chair Bibi Black was joined by vice-chair Jim Davnie, political director Cara Letofsky, secretary Susan Lynx, membership chair Byron Richard and treasurer Ken Engelhart.
How did this election outcome come about in the otherwise mainstream Senior Caucus? As a regular Senior Caucus member since early in the pandemic, I have been an attendee and participant at regular monthly meetings for some time. In my experience, attendance at the Seniors’ meetings generally numbered 35-50 members. Wally Swan, Tony Scallon, Patricia Kelly and Tim Bonham provided steady leadership. Cara became actively involved in the Senior Caucus in early 2024.
The Senior Caucus has long set a pretty low bar for membership for people over 50. Although suggested, dues are voluntary, and members do not even have to reside in Minneapolis.
Outgoing membership chair Martha Holton Dimick estimated in the 60 days running up to the annual meeting, there were approximately 250 new members registered. Martha speculated that the temporary spike in new members would likely be similar to the recently failed effort by socialists to take over the Minneapolis DFL Feminist Caucus, where the new member socialists proved to be one and done attendees. This was also the case with the socialist takeover of the Minneapolis Chapter of the Audubon Society.
The Senior Caucus annual meeting on March 15 was not the historic routine nomination and approval of the lone volunteers to serve as officers. This round there were position statements circulated from candidates I had never met, heard of, nor seen who had attended a few, if any, prior Senior Caucus meetings in zoom format. Not surprisingly, the new candidates were overwhelming elected.
Please pay attention to knowing the voices behind the various endorsements in this critical Minneapolis election.
Better yet, disregard endorsements and make up your own minds.
WedgeLive has interviewed Cara Letovsky, Jim Davne and Susan Lynx about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nithkzMJbw
I find that alot of the articles on this website are well documented. What is not established with evidence, is people’s association with the Democratic Socialist Alliance – and often the term socialist is being used as a straw man. Jim Davne is a recently retired, long term Minneapolis legislator. That being said, from reading articles on the Democratic Socialist Alliance, it seems to me, that this organization hasn’t decided whether to be an independent political party or be a caucus within the DFL. I think this is clear with how the Ward 2 efforts are going. Robin Wonsley and the DSA are actively encouraging people to attend the DFL caucus to block endorsement. Robin Wonsley is running against the DFL. Why does she care who the DFL endorses?
Finally, Cara Letofsky was the lead organizer for the very successful Mayoral Forum at Sabathani. DFLers all over the city of Minneapolis should thank her.
Totally inappropriate. These outsiders and infiltratiors should not be allowed to show up and take over.
Good points. The bottom line is that the DSA/Mpls4TheMany coalition has been adroitly using a short-cut to power – one that involves taking over political infrastructures while having the support of only the tiniest of fractions of the public. This started before those organizations even existed by those names, in about 2010-2012, and really accelerated in 2014-2018. And it has not abated, as the March Senior Caucus takeover made clear. (By the way, whether or not that was DSA, precisely, is irrelevant. It was folks with sympathies toward the DSA/4Many coalition.)
So, while Democrats in the rest of the country try to engage in the real work of figuring out how to rebrand and rebuild national majorities, especially in tough geographies, here in Minneapolis, “normal” progressive DFLers are forced to spend all their time and effort on reclaiming their own party from radicals who have no future outside of this city – and likely only a very limited short-term future IN the city, should they ever win both a Council majority and the Mayor’s office – and let the populace actually see their fever dreams in practice.
I have worked decades on DFL campaigns throughout the Metro, including leadership roles in local office and state legislative races. It was ’round about 2008 that I started insisting that, in order to have my support and my volunteer labor, a DFL candidate for any office had to tell me what his or her plan was for running against an endorsed DFLer should it come to that. Because way too often, for the kinds of people one would LIKE to see in office, it DOES come to that.
When the dust clears on the caususes and conventions, it will be clear who among the non-DSA/4Many candidates are still both viable and “in it to win it” – and there will almost certainly be some who will be facing a DSA/4Many candidate holding a DFL endorsement. It will be important for folks who care about the city to donate to those, as early and as generously as possible, and to volunteer. Both in one’s one Ward, and elsewhere. We can’t take back all the party infrastructure in a short time – it’ll take a good while to turn that around. But we CAN win elections to offices against an opponent that so few eligible voters do or would support.
IMO, this goes straight to the Charter Commission’s proposal for ballot initiative to remove representation from the City Council by shifting some seats to an At-Large status. If old guard “progressive” DFLers can’t deal with the will of voters across the city, why not take their representation away? That’s far from a progressive goal. It would be wise for those seeking to remain viable based on actual political ideology to either uphold true Progressive values or drop that descriptor altogether. People are choosing to either align with or value the goals of DSA (as a goal aligned group WITHIN THE DFL, BTW and not a separate ideological animal) because that’s where many in Minneapolis see their needs being met. And mind you, these people are typically not business owners or big funders. They organize the pants off of groups like those complaining about the MADFLSC elections without large funding or inside influence because people relate to their goals. And that is what it all boils down to doesn’t it? If money can no longer tip the scales, how would those who have relied on it hold onto power in places that require the voters’ nod do so? I don’t personally think that is really the case now; funding is still necessary. But rather than working to other fellow DFLers, it seems wiser to embrace our big tent to be at a larger table to deliberate across the needs of the city rather than pushing anyone into the corner.
The DSA is a fringe group that conservative DFLers, both within the DFL Senior Caucus – Minneapolis Chapter, and among the producers of “Minneapolis Times”, are clearly terrified of. The DSA has had some limited success, mainly by supporting inexperienced young politicians who were endorsed by their DFL wards. In turn, some non-DSA council members, such as mainstream mayoral candidate Emily Koski, have voted with them from time to time, often in an effort to rein in the illiberalism of incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey. The DSA, too, is apparently scared — their website is pretty secretive, listing the organization’s leaders by their first names and the initials of their last names. It’s hard to take an organization seriously when they hide their identities in this manner.
Re. the DFL Senior Caucus: the characterization of newly elected executive committee members of the DFL Senior Caucus-Minneapolis Chapter as socialists is just the sour grapes of a more conservative “old guard” who had their butts handed to them by a more progressive, energetic group who just plain out-organized them. I don’t know all of the members of the new executive committee well, but I do know a majority of them and they are DFLers, not socialists. The old guard’s candidate for chair sent out a red-baiting letter that did not help her bid for election; in contrast, Ms. Black’s letter, which stated plainly that she is not a socialist, discussed the need for DFLers of varying perspectives to work together and referenced the “big tent” of DFL Party members.
The real issue here is that the old guard, strong supporters of incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, fear the progressive members of the city council. The old guard has devolved, by and large, one-issue activists: they are quite pro-police. Many have accused others of Along with State Senator Omar Fateh, who captured the DSA endorsement for mayor, a minority of incumbents city council members are endorsed by the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America:
Robin Wonsley of the 2nd Ward, in “independent socialist” who has never sought nor received DFL backing;
Jason Chavez of the 9th Ward, who identifies as a DFLer; and
Aisha Chughtai of the 10th Ward, who identifies as a DFLer.
Notably, all of these candidates were endorsed by the DSA in 2021 — while Dr. Swan, et al were at the helm of the DFL Senior Caucus-Minneapolis Chapter. I don’t think Swan and the other former officers are socialists, however, though I’ve never asked any of them.
Want to see the “socialist” DFL Senior Caucus – Minneapolis Chapter in action? Join hundreds of your neighbors at the Chapter’s mayoral candidates forum at Sabathani Center on Thursday, April 10. Doors open at 6 pm, and the 90-minute forum begins at 6:30. All six of the candidates seeking DFL endorsement will participate. You might want to ensure your seat by pre-registering at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfwQ7Da7m0BUsiXQ6FTamajsRNv4ZG0D-KTajlH_h8r6972ow/viewform
I think your real problem is that a significant number of the “old guard’ are really Republicans and sowing confusion about others isn’t going to fix that.
Tim,
How did you determine that the new leaders of the Minneapolis Area DFL Senior Caucus are all socialists? I am a member of the Minneapolis Area DFL Senior Caucus since 2023; I am not a socialist unless you can call me a socialist because I voted for George McGovern in the 1972 presidential election.
Are you suggesting that Bibi Black someone who has drafted or helped draft most of the business entity legislation in Minnesota for the past 46 years is a socialist? I think she considers herself to be a progressive capitalist. Are you suggesting that MN District 63A was represented by a socialist from 2001-2023? Does the fact that Dr. Ken Engelhart led a department of internal medicine at the V.A. make him a socialist?
I think you may be misrepresenting some facts, Tim.
Good points, Dan.
I fail to see why this should be an issue of concern. If your opinions truly represent the views of Senior DFL members than you should be able to get a group to win the elections no? People are getting more active in democratic politics and that’s a good thing, if they don’t agree with you you can try to persuade them but whining about high participation is loser stuff.
This whole thing comes across as someone who wanted to keep a secret exclusive club that only agreed with them and is mad that a wider arrange of views that seniors hold are now being represented by the senior caucus.
Tim, as you know better than most, DSA has been out-organizing mainstream DFLers since 2017 elections. In the case of the DFL senior caucus, the takeover required a total of just 406 votes cast. Through six separate elections, DSA captured between 55% and 58% of those votes. As you say, they ran the table in a contest where the numbers were pretty small.
Next Tuesday mainstream DFLers’ organizing prowess will be tested again vs. DSA, in precinct caucuses where between 5,000 and 6,000 people are likely to participate. A tremendous amount of energy is being spent by both sides to get people to attend the caucuses and be elected delegates to the endorsing conventions several weeks from now.
In spite of history from the 2017 city elections to the DFL senior caucus takeover a few weeks ago, mainstream DFLers seem quite optimistic we will somehow out-organize DSA. What if we wake up on April 9 and realize that didn’t happen? What then becomes our path to success in electing people with maturity, experience and judgment in November?
I believe the best answer to that question is to adopt strategies that will turn out about one-third of the 172,000 registered voters who did not vote in 2023. These voters, unlike the typical reader of Minneapolis Times, are not particularly oriented to city politics, they may be indifferent or even hostile to DFL endorsement, they just want a safe city, slower increases in property taxes, and far less performance theater.
Can this many lapsed voters be brought to the polls? Sure, we got that many in 2021. And for the next two years, mainstream DFLers held a majority.
What David said. In 2023 the mainstream-supporting PAC outraised the DSA-supporting PAC by a wide margin, but the DSA PAC out-organized the mainstreamers by a wide margin. And won.
Caucuses are a lousy way to do politics. They were fun and charming before we became such a divided party. There were showdowns over candidates in some years, but we generally were all on the same page. No longer. And most people don’t bother to attend them.
We rode the green line to the Capitol yesterday, allowing us literally in-your-face conversations with strangers for the duration! Most of them did not know about caucuses, and these are people who were fired up enough to go to the protest. Old people, my age, did know, but the middle aged ones and younger ones? Nope.
So all the organizing being done is a heavy lift for a small but critical gain –the Mpls DFL endorsement.
My recommendations.
1. We should do away with caucuses, which are easily controlled by the fervent few. And as we know, caucuses allow less than 2% of voters to decide who will be on the ballot with DFL endorsement in the fall. And they do not even have to be a registered voter to vote at a caucus. I think the only requirement is that you be over 16 and live in the precinct. That sure lowers the bar for recruitment efforts.
2. We should not allow the DSA-endorsed candidates to run as DFL candidates. One or the other, but not both.
3. Pragmatic DFL candidates who are running against DSA candidates should state upfront at the caucuses that they don’t plan to abide by the endorsement, given that the Mpls DFL is no longer representative of most Dems in the city and the deep flaws in the caucus system.
I’m not sure that last one is a winning strategy, because those who bother to attend a caucus and run as a delegate to the convention find it off-putting that their time spent is for naught. But to the broader voting public it might not matter. I’m convinced that if the general public heard a good mainstream Dem go up against a DSA Dem, the former would win. But they rarely get that chance due to the culling process at the caucus level.