- Minneapolis City Council's Attempt to Defund Police Thwarted by Unelected Charter Commission Archived Message
Posted by sashimi
on October 17, 2020, 8:16 am
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(quote) Contrary to reports, most City Council members - who won by pledging to advance racial equity - tried to do the right thing. Last month, The New York Times ran an article by Astead Herndon about politics and police in Minneapolis. By ignoring important context and details, Herndon painted a misleading picture of what happened and what's likely to happen in the near future. He wrote that the Minneapolis City Council's idealistic attempt to change public safety, spurred by young and progressive activists, were thwarted by public opposition and legislative processes. In truth, most of the City Council members, who ran and won by pledging to advance racial equity, tried to do the right - and popular - thing, but were stalled by an unelected, unrepresentative commission that overstepped its authority. ... In his article in the Times, Herndon writes that the public "did not support the actions of councilors or share the aims of influential activists," but that's based on a selective reading of complex - and sometimes contradictory - survey results. It's true that in an August poll of registered voters in Minneapolis, only 42 percent of respondents supported reducing the size of the police force. But the same poll also shows that almost three-quarters of respondents supported redirecting funds from the police department to social service programs; only 25 percent of Minneapolis voters viewed the police favorably; and a plurality would trust the City Council to make decisions about the police department instead of the mayor. The poll results don't constitute solid evidence of public opposition to transforming public safety. Following a pledge made in June at Powderhorn Park, the City Council unanimously proposed an amendment that would remove requirements for a police department from the city charter and insert a department of community safety and violence prevention. This proposal needed to be approved by the charter commission before being put to the electorate. The charter commission, whose members are appointed by a judge, is theoretically responsible for "legal and technical questions," as Herndon writes in the Times. In reality, the commission members expressed their policy preferences and commented on the substantive merits of the proposal. (/quote) -- https://consortiumnews.com/2020/10/16/minneapolis-city-councils-attempt-to-defund-police-thwarted-by-unelected-charter-commission/ |
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