While the Twin Cities DSA’s demand might be a powerful way to keep a conversation about Indigenous history in the spotlight, it fails the basic test of governance.
I’ve spent decades in the trenches, building and growing multiple businesses, advising elected officials, and staring down complicated municipal budgets. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that paper is incredibly patient. You can write down any grand idea you want on a political platform, but out here in the real world, someone eventually has to figure out how the gears actually turn.
That brings me to a new series I’m writing called “Unpacking the DSA,” where we’re going to take a close look at the newly published political platform of the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). My goal isn’t to trade ideological insults. It’s to look past the slogans and subject these proposals to some old-fashioned, practical scrutiny.
Let’s start with one of the most sweeping demands in their platform. The DSA calls for the “Return of land: Return land to First Nations, starting with expropriating State, Federal, and large private holdings, with the return of the rest of the land as soon as possible.”
On paper, it sounds like a bold statement aimed at correcting historic injustices. But when you sit down with a cup of coffee and actually do the math, the proposal quickly falls apart. It moves from a passionate political rally cry to a logistical and financial impossibility.
Let’s Talk About the Numbers
To understand what the DSA is asking for, we have to look at what Minnesota is actually worth. If you’re going to hand over the land—whether you buy it or try to seize it—you have to look at the market value. We can break this down into two piles: taxable property and non-taxable property.
First, let’s look at the taxable land. When the DSA talks about returning “the rest of the land as soon as possible,” they are talking about the neighborhoods, family farms, and local businesses that everyday Minnesotans live and work on.
According to the Minnesota House Research Department’s data for the 2024 assessment year, the total Estimated Market Value of all taxable property in our state is a jaw-dropping $1.08 trillion. That includes about $536 billion in residential homes, $205 billion in agricultural land, and nearly $120 billion in commercial and industrial properties.
To put $1.08 trillion in perspective, Minnesota’s entire two-year state budget is around $72 billion, or $36 billion annually. If the government tried to buy this land legally to return it, it would cost 30 times the state’s entire annual operating budget. And remember, that’s just the taxable stuff.
Then there is the non-taxable pile. The DSA wants to start by taking state and federal lands. Minnesota has about 51.2 million acres of land, and the government owns a quarter of it—roughly 12.8 million acres. We are talking about 8.4 million acres of state land and 3.4 million acres of federal land. Handing that over means giving away the Chippewa and Superior National Forests, our state parks, and wildlife areas that currently belong to every citizen.
Non-taxable property also includes public schools, hospitals, town halls, and churches. County assessors don’t value these every year the way they do your house, but public finance experts generally estimate that exempt property adds another 15% to 25% on top of a state’s taxable real estate. In Minnesota, that means non-taxable property represents another $150 billion to $250 billion.
The Real-World Roadblocks
But let’s look past the astronomical price tag for a moment. Even if we had the money, how would this actually work? The short answer is: it wouldn’t.
First, there’s the U.S. Constitution. The DSA platform uses the word “expropriating,” which is just a bureaucratic term for seizing property. But the Fifth Amendment is very clear: the government cannot take private property for public use without paying “just compensation.” Any attempt to simply confiscate land from large private owners would trigger an immediate legal war, and the courts would strike it down in a heartbeat.
Second, think about what happens to your local community if the tax base vanishes. Property taxes are the lifeblood of local government. They pay for the teachers in our schools, the police officers and firefighters on our streets, and the plows that clear our roads in January. If massive chunks of taxable land are transferred to sovereign First Nations—which operate outside the state and local tax systems—that revenue disappears. Cities and towns would face immediate financial collapse.
Finally, there’s the plain old headache of daily infrastructure. Property isn’t just dirt; it’s an interconnected web of modern systems. Who maintains the water and sewer lines running underneath land that has been transferred? Who manages the power grid, the water rights, or the highways cutting across these boundaries? Splitting up jurisdictions this way would create an administrative nightmare for utilities and emergency services.
The Bottom Line
Ideology is a luxury for people who don’t have to balance a budget or keep the streetlights on. While the Twin Cities DSA’s demand might be a powerful way to keep a conversation about Indigenous history in the spotlight, it fails the basic test of governance.
Trying to expropriate and transfer over $1.2 trillion in property isn’t just financially impossible; it’s legally forbidden and economically dangerous. Real progress requires us to work within the world we actually live in, rather than trying to dismantle the very foundations of our economy and legal system. In my next column, we’ll take this same realistic look at another of the DSA’s core demands.
Research Sources:
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Democratic Socialists of America Platform: Twin Cities DSA. (2024). Twin Cities DSA Party Platform. Retrieved from the Minneapolis Times Archive.
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Minnesota Property Valuation and Tax Data: Minnesota House of Representatives Research Department. (2024). Property Tax Assessment Data and Market Values. For more information on statewide valuations and fiscal distributions, visit the Minnesota House Research Department.
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Public and State Land Records: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources & MnGeo. (2016/2020). Minnesota’s Public Lands and Trust Fund Records. Detailed acreage, state forest tracking, and federal domain records can be accessed via MnGeo Public Land Records and the Minnesota DNR Managed Lands Lexicon.
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Federal Forest Ownership Data: USDA Forest Service. (2021). Forests of Minnesota, 2020 Resource Update. Resource Update FS-326. Madison, WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture. Available via the USDA Forest Service Database.
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Constitutional Law and Property Rights: U.S. Constitution. amend. V. (The Just Compensation Clause). The full legal annotations regarding eminent domain and property expropriation can be read at the Library of Congress Constitution Annotated.
Related: The Socialist Agenda: What the Twin Cities DSA Demands for the State’s Future
Does the DSA platform actually say that compensation will be provided to the current owners of private property? Or, although they worked 30 years to pay mortgages, is it just a matter of, “sorry, you had no right to buy the land, so it goes back to the original inhabitants and you are out of luck”. Will there be a DSA court system to seize the property and a DSA sheriff to enforce the court order? I really think it would take more of a DSA army. Perhaps the Minnesota National Guard could become the DSA guard.
Then, in my 40 year police career, I had three long term native patrol partners from the Red Lake, Mille Lacs, and Leech Lake reservations. We worked native neighborhoods, like Little Earth of the United Tribes. Over the course of native history sometimes Minnesota was inhabited by the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) and sometimes the Lakota. Who would the land go back to? These are not generic indiginous peoples. They are sovereign independent nations.
The posted platform contains some aspirational points which could take a long time to achieve, but most of it is ultimately achievable and describes desirable goals. For example, the ‘Lands Back’ plank refers to a nationwide movement to restore lands forcibly taken from Native American tribes, mainly in the nineteenth century by white settlers sometimes, but not always, supported by US military forces. The movement is decentralized but has achieved notable successes, particularly in the northwest US and especially in Portland, where about 600 new housing units have been erected on recovered land, alleviating housing shortages. As pointed out recently in the NYT, it is easier for native organizations to build affordable housing on recovered land than it is for private nonnative developers on other urban land because the native organizations are less subject to a thicket of bureaucratic obstacles.
Nobody thinks that this native land recovery program can be achieved all at once. In the northwest it began in the 1970’s. and continues. Estimates of the total cost of recovering all the taken native land in Minnesota immediately at current market prices, as found in a recent post here, are therefore irrelevant.
Woods Halley
Oh, dear.
On second thought, I think the DSA advocates for the returning the land to our red neighbors should shame the rest of us handing over the deeds to their ‘ill gotten” property first.
Thank you very much for the math. It helps, a lot. Meanwhile ” the total Estimated Market Value of all taxable property in our state is a jaw-dropping $1.08 trillion” —> Elon Musk’s worth apparently just passed 1 Trillion. So his net worth is the same as the entire taxable property in significant US state!
DSA seems to be the opposite of classical liberalism
The DSA needs to answer a simple question before they can legitimately discuss/demand the return of lands to indigenous peoples: exactly where on the timeline of human history do they expect to say “here is where the true owners of this land existed”? I believe that science has determined that all human life on the planet can be traced back to the African continent. Does that mean we should just turn ourselves over to Africa?? Obviously not going to happen. David’s analysis of the financial aspect seems pretty accurate.
Yes, they do have the luxury of beating an ideological drum. And if too many people of common sense vacate Minneapolis, that is all they may be left with when it comes to their choices at the voting booth.
I expect that this analysis will get even more interesting as we proceed.