Minnesota Can’t Afford to Waste a Critical Election Cycle

Voters should demand candidates focus on important issues

Stupid political campaigns produce public policies that at best are ineffective and at worst are wasteful and even harmful.

Minneapolis is a case in point. Recent city council and mayoral campaigns have featured empty slogans and angry finger-pointing. Meanwhile, meaningful solutions for what matters most to the city’s vibrancy and economic success get ignored by candidates. Housing is a good example. While candidates have decried every aspect of the housing crisis from the number of people unsheltered to the affordability of homes, the policies have produced dismal outcomes. As Carol Becker reported in the Minneapolis Times, “New housing starts have instead declined precipitously, with 2024 housing starts being less than 10% of the number built in 2019.”

Good policy takes public buy-in, the kind of citizen understanding and consensus-building that political campaigns should create. When campaigns are little more than sloganeering or are vested in trivial issues, the mandate for elected officials to act boldly is diminished.

Minnesota is beginning one of its most consequential two-year election cycles. This fall voters will select leaders for the state’s largest cities and some of its biggest school districts. Next year, state and federal races take the stage when Minnesotans will choose a governor, a new U.S. senator, all eight members of the congressional delegation and the entire legislature.

The state can’t afford campaigns that are vapid and devoid of real solutions. Minnesota is at a crossroads. The engine of economic vitality - population growth - is sputtering. Too many students are graduating from Minnesota elementary and secondary schools never having achieved proficiency in core academic areas. Where there is affordable housing in the state, there aren’t enough jobs; where the demand for workers remains strong, housing is unaffordable for many.

Minnesota’s critical elections will occur at a time when politics and politicians have grown small. Candidates ignore the most important issues while running campaigns rooted in the meaningless or the mean. When they aren’t on the attack, candidates too often are talking about things like immigrants eating pets not because it’s important or even true, but because it creates another membership badge in the we vs. them club.

Minnesota politics and policymakers often were a cut above many others. They risked careers to challenge voters and often their own parties. Harold Stassen called on the U.S. to assume a new leadership role in world affairs after World War II. Hubert Humphrey called on Americans to walk into the sunshine of civil rights. Gene McCarthy became the voice of a generation opposed to an immoral war. Dave Durenberger reached across the partisan divide to join Ted Kennedy and others in assuring that Americans with disabilities could more fully participate in society and the economy.

In our own backyard, governors and legislators of both parties crafted smart policies to bring Minnesota from an also-ran state in the 1950s to the cover of Time Magazine in the 1970s as the model of a state that works. Innovative solutions made sure that graduates of Minnesota public schools were well educated whether their school was in the smallest farm community or the largest urban center. Long before the Affordable Care Act, policymakers in Minnesota crafted public-private partnerships to give those with pre-existing conditions access to affordable health coverage. Later, a new initiative, MinnesotaCare, provided coverage for working Minnesotans who didn’t have health coverage through an employer but didn’t qualify for Medical Assistance (Medicaid). Environmental protections born in Minnesota found their way into national policy, protecting the nation’s air and water.

For too long, the state has fed off the seed corn planted by the innovative policymakers of past generations. Democrats and Republicans alike keep offering yesterday’s solutions to tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities.

At the beginning of Minnesota’s critical two-year election cycle voters should demand candidates come forward with proposals for the future. Voters deserve to hear substantive solutions to critical issues. Among them are these:

What is the right balance between the high level of public services most Minnesotans expect and the level of taxation most families can afford? The issue is becoming ever more urgent as two of the most regressive taxes - property taxes and local sales taxes - rapidly areincreasing. The challenges are to make taxes fairer and more transparent, to make government spending more effective and accountable and to make the state more competitive in attracting businesses and people. Those issues aren’t solved in a debate framed by a choice between GOP tax cuts or DFL spending.

How can Minnesota protect its natural assets while promoting economic growth, business development and the creation of well-paying jobs? A neutral outsider might look at Minnesota and conclude we have a love-hate relationship with the environment. We tout the beauty of our lakes, yet by some estimates more than half of the state’s lakes and streams are impaired, often by causes within our control. Meanwhile, communities throughout the state are being lured by large-scale, energy- and water-sucking developments to support new technologies for the price of new jobs. Minnesota is more likely to thrive and grow with clean air and water and abundant outdoor recreation opportunities than giant AI facilities or dangerous mining operations. Policymakers, though, need to answer how communities and people denied the income from these investments for the sake of a healthier state can still earn good livelihoods.

What is the role of higher education in Minnesota’s future? The University of Minnesota has been an economic engine for the state even before Minnesota was a state. Today, it is a major force in creating new businesses, developing the technologies and knowledge that lead to medical miracles and producing an educated work force. Yet, the U too often is taken for granted by policymakers when it comes to funding. Part of the challenge is that Minnesota often has put more of a premium on access than quality. Public two- and four-year higher education campuses continue throughout the state even as enrollments at many schools decline. A policy discussion is long overdue, and includes an examination of what the state needs from higher education to grow and prosper, to keep young people in Minnesota and to keep the work force current; how best to finance the public’s stake in the systems and especially in maintaining one of the great public research universities in the country; and, the most difficult, the feasibility of operating Minnesota’s nearly 60 campuses of public higher education.

Certainly, there are other big issues, including health reform, racial disparities, the unsheltered population, public safety and on and on. Tackling any of these challenges and opportunities by offering fact-based insights and proposed solutions would elevate campaigns dramatically. It would build public understanding of the difficult choices Minnesota faces and the pay-off for making those choices.

Most of all, campaigns of substance and solutions would engage Minnesotans in shaping our own future. That alone would deliver on the promise of making the 2025-26 campaign cycle consequential.

(This article first was published in the Minneapolis Times. If you care about Minneapolis and the metro region, considering subscribing to this insightful and timely publication. https://minneapolistimes.com/)