The Twin Cities Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America developed a 52-item questionnaire provided to mayoral candidates seeking their endorsement. If you are running for Mayor of Minneapolis, and sought TCDSA’s endorsement, you received the questionnaire.
TCDSA’s leaders and members are, of course, fully entitled to their views about public policy. But their questionnaire is quite telling, in that many of the questions reveal how out of step they are with the views of ordinary residents and voters in Minneapolis.
Here are some examples:
They ask: “Do you support the implementation of a strong rent control policy, including 3% cap on rent increases, no vacancy decontrol, no exemptions for new construction?” A “yes” answer is expected, but a candidate answering “yes” would be painted into a corner that allows no learning from the experience of other cities with absolute rent control policies, including, disastrously, St. Paul.
They ask: “Do you oppose increases to the current police budget?” For context, it’s worth noting that the DSA’s official national platform calls for defunding the police, cutting budgets annually toward zero, and prohibiting investment in police training or facility renovations. Starve the beast, in other words. A candidate who provides the expected “yes” answer to this question would commit himself or herself to oppose, for the next four years, any increase, even to fund growth in personnel (required by city charter and Department of Human Rights Settlement Agreement), or general inflation.
They ask: “Would you pursue the expansion of municipal functions and services by the City of Minneapolis, such as the creation of a municipal bank, establishment of municipal grocery stores, (and)…continued expansion of a municipal sidewalk plowing and clearance program?” The first two of these are, by definition, socialist in nature, though of course any candidate is free to advocate for them but real-world data show they don’t work. The sidewalk shoveling measure, in the 2023 campaign cycle, was demonstrated to have an expense rivaling that of the city’s entire Street Maintenance department.
They ask: “Do you support requiring carbon-free heating in all residential buildings owned by large landlords within five years?” This question does not consider the massive cost in complete change-out of heating systems in for almost half of the housing units in Minneapolis in five years. Nor does it answer what will happen to rents in the City if renters are forced to pay for this really expensive cost. Likewise, if TCDSA achieves its goal of absolute rent control, 3% annual increase limits with no exceptions, how could this possibly be funded?
They ask: “Do you support a $20 minimum wage?” Understand that when the City increased the minimum wage, for every dollar more that was earned from the higher minimum wage, two dollars were lost because businesses closed or reduced hours. Poor people earned less, substantially less, when the minimum wage was increased. A “yes” answer precludes study of effects to date of Minneapolis’ outlier position on minimum wages. For sure, we would want to know the benefits of the local minimum wage; how many workers are living a better life because of it. But also, how many jobs have been lost due to substitution of technology, closing of businesses, and relocation to other, more business-friendly jurisdictions.
They ask: “Would you pressure Hennepin County to shut down the HERC trash burner by 2025?” Well, folks, it is 2025, and county residents only recycle a reported 18% of their trash. So what are we to do about the other 82%? If the City were to just bury its waste, the closest garbage dump is in Illinois.
So….if you are tempted to vote for a DSA-endorsed candidate this fall, keep in mind that he or she probably answered yes to most or all of these questions.
David Therkelsen has been a homeowner in Minneapolis for 50 years, and attentive to city and school affairs for all of that time. Professionally, he headed two American Red Cross field units, and at one time was co-chief of staff to the President of American Red Cross in Washington, DC. Later he was executive director of Crisis Connection, a state-wide mental health counseling agency. Dave held faculty appointments at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and recently co-authored a book about the history of transfusion medicine and blood banking.
David Therkelson: 1. Lisa Goodman, not me, said rents are soaring…but renters I know agree rents are soaring. 2. Don’t over-react to platforms of groups that are not a political party; we know socialism has always existed in capitalism…some argue that capitalism is not sustainable with the controls wrought by socialism. 3. Ditto on defunding police, but DSA’s position certainly helped the city on needed police reform. 4. In large measure, raising the minimum wage to livable levels is kinda like waiting for Gadot. Meantime, many business have already raised wages to ABOVE levels advocated by DSA. “Real Dems figure out how to drive social change.” Really? Seems Dems are losing young and minority voters (NYTimes) precisely because folks don’t fully know what the Dem Party is really doing. And, I frankly don’t believe that garbage not burned in the downtown incinerator would have to be shipped all the way to Illinois. And, DSA is an advocacy group that doesn’t claim to be qualified to govern. That’s the job of political parties, and for too long the Dems haven’t governed very well. In all, you over-react to the DSA. You and the Dems would do better to seek common ground, and there a LOT of theat. Thank you.
Ron, 1. Facts are stubborn. Perhaps rents were “soaring” when CM made the statement five years ago, but in recent times they have risen at about 1% annually, anecdotes notwithstanding. If we are foolish enough to do no-exceptions, 3% rent control, rents will “soar” to 3%, because no property owner will leave the other 2% on the table. 2. DSA is a political party. It has, in fact, declared itself a rival of both the Democratic and Republican party. But understanding it will not elect many people under the DSA banner, it incorporated itself as a nonprofit, and tactically, it runs people as Democrats, ostensibly their rival. It’s a wolf that shops at the sheep’s clothing store. In Minneapolis, DSA does indeed govern, just not very well. (Trying to make foreign policy?? Failing in five-plus years to return the Third Precinct to the Third Precinct???) DSA’s platform, like that of any party, is a good indicator of its aspirations. Sure, DSA and Democrats have a lot of common ground. Nearly all of the adherents of both share progressive political views, after all, notwithstanding DSA’s labeling of their opponents as conservatives. But their differences are too sharp to fit under one tent, whatever its size. 3. DSA indeed gets credit for stimulating police reform, but really no more than anyone else. As a 50-year Minneapolis resident, I’ve never seen this community more united than it was on this issue, post-George Floyd. And in governing, the DSA-affiliated council majority has often blocked or opposed true reform. Best example is their standing in the way of hiring more cops, when the 300 or so vacancies offer the best possible opportunity to change the culture. 4. I don’t know whether Godot studied economics, but the current city council minority clearly has not. If businesses are going above the levels advocated by the DSA, they are making free-market decisions to do so, and good for them and for their employees. But the execution of the city minimum wage has cost ordinary workers $2 in lost employment for every dollar gained. At that rate Godot will have come and gone before we get everyone to livable wages. 5). Maybe the garbage won’t have to go to Illinois, but if not, where’s the plan that tells us where it will go?
While I don’t agree that Dems in Minneapolis have not governed well – from the early 90s through 2017 it was one of the nation’s best-governed cities – I entirely agree that the Dem Party as a whole has done a dreadful job of building a strategy and communicating its vision to ordinary voters.
So once again, we disagree on a number of things, but not everything!
Ron, let’s take it from the top. 1. Soaring? Since 2018 rents have been “soaring” at about 1% annually. That’s mainly because we’ve built almost nothing but apartments. Almost no single-family housing, which just as surely as redlining, locks out poor people from home ownership that builds generational wealth. 2). You are correct. But the DSA platform explicitly calls for replacing capitalism with socialism. Not just the grocery co-ops and the grain elevators. 3). Defunding the police is explicitly advocated in the DSA platform, as is no facilities improvement and no training for cops. Real Dems are indeed pushing for police reforms, and have accomplished much since 2020. DSA? Not so much. In fact, when police recruitment campaigns started to achieve real success, what did our council majority do? They cut the recruitment budget. 4) and 6). Indeed, Dems have led the way in this area. Fact is, when new council is seated, it won’t even be 2025 any more. So they’ll try to do it in 2026? With no thought of what happens to the 82% of our trash that we don’t recycle? 5). You are right again. But real Dems figure out how to drive social change, including minimum wage, so it serves the intended goals. Minimum wage increases work well in smaller increments. If the dose is small, employers suck up the cost. If the dose is large, they find alternatives like technology that removes the order-taker. Clearly the DSA folks have not consulted the studies documenting the actual effects of the too-much too-fast movement to $15.
Ron, if you’ve read some of my other articles, you might have noted that my issues with DSA are not so much that I disagree with them (though I often do), it is their complete lack of qualifications to govern a $1.9 billion, 4,000 employee enterprise. Not one of them has ever had buck-stops-here accountability for the success or failure of any substantial enterprise. From the early 1990s through 2017 almost all Minneapolis elected officials were progressive Democrats. But nearly all of them had maturity, experience and judgment to guide their decisions. We see almost none of that in the current council majority. That’s what we’re trying to change in November. We’ll still have progressive Democrats leading our city. But people who know what a city is and does and know how to lead.
If I may, I’ll point out that your own long experience in environmental advocacy supports my argument. In putting forward policy ideas, you back them up with research and sound judgment. We need more of that in City Hall. We should be able to agree on that much, at least.
1. Former Council Member Lisa Goodman told Mpls Mag in 2020 that among the fixes needed in the city was to control soaring rent. 2. Community owned businesses do work, like the Farmers Exchange, Land O’ Lakes, grocery co-ops and in North Dakota the state mill and elevator and the state bank. 3. On police budgets, it’s a red herring to constantly yammer about defunding police…it’s not advocated in MN and voted down in Mpls., and Dems are among those pushing for police reforms 4. Dems have long agreed that carbon-free energy is a worthwhile and urgent goal. 5. Likewise, Dems have long pushed for increasing the minimum wage. 6. The garbage incinerator has long been opposed by very establishment environmental groups and downtown residents (we’re among them).
Another changing alignment…..Adam Schneider is also Green Party endorsed. And it appears Robin Wonsley also was considering pursuing Green Party endorsement as of last month according to social media, but decided not to. This could either signal that the DSA is considering trying to be its own party, or is going to graft itself onto the Green Party, which is greatly diminished. The state has made it hard to create new political parties, so taking over the Green name could be a legitimate pathway.