I wrote about the tainted endorsement of the ideologically fetid Omar Fateh for mayor by Minneapolis Democrats in convention assembled on July 19 in the post “Omar, oh no!” Upon further examination, the state party’s Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee (CBRC) found substantial failures in the convention’s voting process, including an acknowledgement that a mayoral candidate was errantly eliminated from contention. As a result, the CBRC has nullified the convention’s endorsement of Fateh for mayor. The coming mayoral election will take place with no DFL-endorsed candidate, but with the city’s ranked choice voting-system in effect.
The state party has posted a press release announcing the revocation of Fateh’s endorsement. The press release states that the CBRC’s final findings will be published today. At the moment the press release links to this draft of the final document.
Paragraph 2 of the draft findings establishes that there was an undercount of 176 votes on the first mayoral endorsement vote — the only one in which votes were counted. “Two things are abundantly clear” from the convention tabulation of the vote, the first of which is that the electronic voting system produced a highly inaccurate count and the second of which is that a third candidate should not have been eliminated from contention after the flawed first endorsement vote.
Paragraph 3 of the draft findings makes out that the entire Ward 5 credentials book was lost by the Minneapolis party causing delegates to have to reestablish delegate status. Additional findings in paragraph 3 make out numerous opportunities for cheating in the endorsement process that one would be a fool to think remained unused.
In its section on remedies the CBRC draft nullifies the convention’s endorsement of Omar Fateh. This is the result announced in the DFL press release linked above.
With minutes to go before the July 19 convention adjourned, the remaining delegates approved two resolutions: to oppose any city or Park Board contracts with entities “complicit in the occupation and genocide of Gaza,” and to oppose the use of laser light projections by any city agencies or concert venues along the river, in order to protect migrating birds.
What we have here is something like the expressive form of DFL governance in a one-party city and in the state during the 2023-2024 period of DFL dominance. Perhaps I should say that we have here is something like the expressive form of Democrat governance writ large. The press release concludes, however, “Now it’s time to turn our focus to unity and our common goal: electing DFL leaders focused on making life more affordable for Minnesotans and holding Republicans accountable for the chaos and confusion they’ve unleashed on Minnesotans.”
