In the last week or so, thousands of St. Paul voters received mail fliers from two “Vote Yes!” campaigns related to the city’s Nov. 4 ballot. The first flier urges a yes vote for a special 10-year school district property tax levy. The second urges a yes vote for a charter amendment that would allow the city council to fashion administrative citations, or non-criminal fine ladders for ordinance violations.
Both are labeled “Supported by: Saint Paul DFL.”
There’s just one problem with that claim, at least in the eyes of ballot question opponents. No such organization effectively exists.
Lacking a chair or vice-chair, with leadership dwindled down to a single board member and short on cash and volunteers, the St. Paul DFL went on hiatus this year. It held no precinct caucuses or ward caucuses or a city convention. It did not endorse candidates for mayor or in a special Ward 4 council election this summer, and in August it rescinded its own constitution, which is being rewritten in light of the city’s upcoming switch to even-year elections.
Officials who had been active with the previously St. Paul DFL and the state party’s central committee have defended the wording on the two campaign fliers, which they say accurately reflects written letters of support and a unanimous vote carried out on the city committee’s behalf in late September, albeit under the auspices of four state Senate district DFL committees and the Ramsey County DFL.
“There’s a lot of overlap between groups. … Technically the unit does exist in the eyes of the state party, even as it goes under this major revision work,” said Quentin Wathum-Ocama, an outreach officer with the Minnesota State DFL, who also chairs the “Vote Yes for Strong Schools” committee.
“I think the confusion is using ‘Saint Paul’ (in the flier), but it certainly has official DFL support in the eyes of the state party,” Wathum-Ocama said.
Complaint filed
Not everyone sees it that way. Over the weekend, former City Hall employee Peter Butler emailed media outlets to point out the irony of attempting to approve administrative citations to hold landlords, business owners and others accountable for rule-breaking, while “blatantly misleading” voters and “claiming support from the defunct DFL.”
Butler on Saturday mailed an official complaint to the Court of Administrative Hearings, citing state statute around campaign practices.
“The Minnesota Fair Campaign Practices Act prohibits making false claims of support,” said Butler, who assembled enough petition signatures this year to force a public ballot over administrative citations, blocking the city council from enacting a charter amendment on their own. “A party unit called ‘St. Paul DFL’ does not exist.”
If the court calls for a judicial panel to look into the matter, a decision would not be issued before the Nov. 4 election, Butler acknowledged.
In 2009, a judicial panel fined the St. Paul Better Ballot campaign — which advocated for ranked-choice voting — $5,000 for claiming support from the St. Paul DFL and other politicians and political groups who had not weighed in on the ballot question. That decision came down in December 2009, about a month after voters went to the polls to approve ranked-choice voting.
‘Letters of support’
In early August, St. Paul DFL treasurer Rick Varco asked the state party to cancel the party unit’s existing constitution and review a new one.
While that process gets underway, the party unit’s reins have been handed to the Ramsey County DFL, which chose to delegate the authority to a member to assemble a “Letter of Support” committee.
The process behind issuing “letters of support” when no local party unit exists is laid out under Article 12 of the state party’s constitution, Varco said.
“The St. Paul DFL party unit has terminated operations under its current constitution and is awaiting approval by the DFL State Central Committee of a new constitution based on even-year precinct caucuses,” reads a call for letters of support, posted on the Congressional District 4 DFL website. “In absence of a St. Paul unit, the Ramsey County DFL holds authority and this Call is issued pursuant to that authority.”
Nobody nominated ‘Vote No’
The Sept. 28 committee gathering, which drew “a couple dozen people” to Carpenters Union Hall on Olive Street, was open to all St. Paul-based members of the four DFL Senate district central committees in the capital city, Varco said.
“There was a mailing, and the call was mailed to everybody who was eligible and emailed out to everybody who was eligible,” he said.
Varco said the group met and “voted unanimously to approve a letter of support for each ballot question. ‘Vote Yes’ is the St. Paul DFL-supported position. … Nobody nominated ‘Vote No.’ Nobody voted for ‘No Position’ on either one.”
The Sept. 28 vote was focused on the narrow matter of whether to support the two ballot questions, and not on any particular candidate or other outside issues, and “no other letters of support or endorsements may be considered,” reads the written call for letters.
Wathum-Ocama said the committee meeting “was pretty quick — we were in and out in an hour. Letters of support, they’re not the same as being endorsed … but they’re pretty common, particularly in our suburbs where they don’t have DFL units.”
Varco, who acknowledged the process was “an unusual situation” for St. Paul, said he was hopeful the new constitution for the St. Paul DFL would make it to the state party’s central committee agenda by their December meeting and receive approval.
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