Democrats face peril in ‘defund’ police message
Debate on proposal in Minnesota is a key test for party
MINNEAPOLIS — As activists mobilized this summer to ask Minneapolis voters to replace their police department, one of the first prominent Democrats to slam the plan was a moderate congresswoman who doesn’t live in the city.
Angie Craig declared it “shortsighted, misguided and likely to harm the very communities that it seeks to protect.” She warned that it could push out the city’s popular Black police chief.
Craig’s district covers a suburban-to-rural and politically divided region south of the city, but her willingness to jump into the fight next door highlights the political threat that Democrats like Craig see in the proposal.
As a city that has become synonymous with police abuse wrestles with police reform, the effort is sharply dividing Democrats along ideological lines. The state’s best known progressives — U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and Attorney General Keith Ellison — support the plan, which would replace the police department with a new Department of Public Safety. Other top Democrats, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Gov. Tim Walz, oppose it.
The debate is dominating the city’s mayoral and City Council races, the first since a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd in May 2020 and sparked a global racial reckoning. Passing the amendment would be a major win for the reform movement — both in substance and symbolism. But many in the Democratic establishment believe calls to “dismantle” or “defund” police cost the party seats in statehouses and Congress last year. They’re determined not to let that happen again next year. Defeating the Minneapolis measure has become a critical, high-profile test.
“If we talk about reforming the police, people are overwhelmingly in favor of it. When we say ‘defund,’ we lose the argument,” said Colin Strother, a Texasbased Democratic strategist. “Democrats that keep using ‘defund the police’ are only hurting themselves and the cause, quite frankly.”
The ballot proposal asks voters whether they want to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety that would take a “comprehensive public health approach” that “could include” police officers “if necessary.” It doesn’t use the word “defund,” and critics say that was a deliberate attempt by a majority of City Council members to conceal their aims.
Ellison, a strong supporter of the proposal, said amendment supporters simply want “more tools to guarantee public safety, more than just a police-only model. They want other people who have expertise in mental health, housing, violence reduction and intervention” who are better trained to handle situations that armed police now face alone.
But he’s wary of the phrase “defund the police,” which he called “a cry for reform” that comes from “young people who were absolutely outraged by what happened to George Floyd.”
Ellison said he avoids using it, calling it “hot rhetoric, not a policy, not a program.”
Omar, who represents Minneapolis, contends there’s “nothing radical” in the amendment. What’s radical, she said in an opinion piece published in the Star Tribune, was how opponents fought to keep it off the ballot and, in her view, misrepresent what it will do.
The ballot question has attracted plenty of money, with glossy mailers showing up and ads filling social media feeds since shortly before early voting began in early September. The Yes 4 Minneapolis campaign has raised over $1 million in cash and nearly $500,000 of in-kind donations from across the country, according to campaign finance reports filed in August.
The group has stressed the need for change and sought to reassure voters that the new structure will make everyone safer. It has also disputed suggestions from opponents that passage would mean the departure of Medaria Arradondo, the city’s popular Black chief, even though Arradondo said passage would put any law enforcement leader in a “wholly unbearable position.”
The newer All of Mpls, which opposes the amendment, raised over $100,000 in its first few weeks, mostly locally. It has been playing up the uncertainty over how the proposed new department would work, since the amendment leaves it to the City Council and the mayor to figure out the details in a short timeframe after the election.
University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs credited the “defund” issue with helping Republicans hold their own in Minnesota’s legislative races in 2020 despite Joe Biden winning statewide.