Minnesota Supreme Court allows ballot question on Minneapolis Police

The Minnesota Supreme Court is allowing a ballot question that gives voters the opportunity to decide the future of Minneapolis’s policing to stay in place, ending a legal fight over the language in the measure.

The measure, if passed, would get rid of a Minneapolis charter requirement to have a police department that has a minimum level of staffing, according to the Star Tribune. It would instead have Minneapolis replace it with a public safety department “that employs a comprehensive public health approach,” with those functions to be decided by the mayor and City Council later.

A lower court had previously ruled that the ballot question did not sufficiently describe the proposed measure’s effects and rejected the language, The Associated Press reported.

However, that decision was overturned by the Minneapolis Supreme Court, with Chief Justice Lorie Gildea saying in the court’s order that the “high standard” had not been met by the legal challenge against the language of the ballot measure.

Gildea also noted the timing of the decision, which comes as early voting in the city begins on Friday, adding that a full opinion would be issued later.

The vote comes more than a year after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died at the hands of a white now-former Minneapolis police officer. Footage of Floyd’s killing circulated on social media quickly, reigniting national discussions over racial justice and equity in the country. 

It also prompted cities to reconsider the role of policing in their localities, including with Yes 4 Minneapolis, which headed the ballot effort.

“We’re all very pleased that the system worked,” an attorney for the group, Terrance Moore, said according to the AP. “As ugly as it sometimes looks, the process went through from beginning to end and in the end the Supreme Court followed the law and its precedent. And the voters get to vote on the ballot question.”