Author Archives: naomikritzer

Election 2020: Saint Paul School Board

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This is a special election to fill the seat that was left empty by Marny Xiong’s incredibly tragic and untimely death. (She was 31 and died of COVID.)

On the ballot:

Jamila Mame
Jim Vue
James Farnsworth
Keith Hardy
Omar Syed
Charlotte “Charlie” Castro

Jim Vue was elected by the rest of the board to fill the seat until an election could be held, so he’s semi-incumbent but only barely. (Link goes to the Pioneer Press news bank; should be accessible with a St. Paul library card.) Keith Hardy previously served two terms on the Saint Paul School Board before losing his seat in 2015. (He was also a finalist for the interim position). Omar Syed and Charlie Castro both ran for school board in 2019.

One source that gives some really detailed information on each candidate is Saint Paul Federation of Teachers Questionnaire, available here.

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Election 2020: Associate Justice, MN Supreme Court

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Okay, wow, WordPress decided to make me learn a new editing interface. I DID NOT ASK FOR THIS, WORDPRESS. Anyway, if the result is that screw up some incredibly obvious trivial formatting task, I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT IT’S WORDPRESS’S FAULT. Also if there’s some app or extension that will just make WordPress act like it used to, please let me know; this new setup is obnoxious. 

Today’s post is on the Supreme Court race, which should be pretty quick and easy as it’s a perfectly fine incumbent and an astonishingly awful challenger.

Paul Thissen (incumbent)
Michelle MacDonald

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Election 2020: US Representative, District 4

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This is the St. Paul congressional seat currently held by Betty McCollum. The tl;dr is that I think you should vote for Betty McCollum.

On the ballot:

Betty McCollum (DFL)
Gene Rechtzigel (Republican)
Susan Sindt (Grassroots – Legalize Cannabis)

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Election 2020: US Senate

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If you’re feeling like you just voted for Tina Smith, that’s because in 2018 she was on the ballot to finish out the two remaining years of Al Franken’s term. This year she’s on the ballot for a whole six-year term.

On ballots statewide:

Tina Smith (DFL)
Jason Lewis (Republican)
Oliver Steinberg (Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis)
Kevin O’Connor (Legal Marijuana Now)

For extra fun and confusion while researching this particular race, I discovered that there is a Kevin O’Connor running for US Senate in the Republican Primary in Massachusetts, and there is a Senator Jason Lewis — a Democrat — in the Massachusetts State Senate. “Not the same guy” is super duper obvious with the other Jason Lewis but I was temporarily thrown by Kevin O’Connor because, for one thing, we had a Texan running against Tina in the primary so “but he isn’t from here?” isn’t the obvious answer you might think.

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Election 2020: Let’s Do This

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The candidate lists are up on the Minnesota Secretary of State site, and here are the contested national, statewide, and metro-area races plus the Minneapolis ballot questions, which unfortunately are not going to involve policing. (Fuck the charter commission.)

I’m not planning to write about all the legislative races because there are 36 of them, most are only barely contested, and for fuck’s sake, people, it tells you on the ballot which one’s the Democrat! Just vote for the Democrat! (There is one Green running, I’ll try to do that race. There are also a few races with candidates from the two (two!) Yay Weed parties. You’ll get my rant on that at the end.)

I’m going to try to get these done a lot earlier than I did with the primary races, because I know a lot of people are planning to vote early. (As happened with the primary races, this plan may get pre-empted by edits arriving from my publisher.)

The Presidential ballot is not actually available yet on the My Ballot site — I assume because there isn’t officially a Republican candidate yet (and possibly because whether Kanye gets on our ballot is still up in the air). I’ll write about it at some point, mostly just because researching all the weirdos like Kanye is entertaining. But, that’s why I’m not listing that race on this post.

US Senate

Tina Smith (DFL)
Jason Lewis (GOP)
Oliver Steinberg (WEED)
Kevin O’Connor (WEED)

US House – District 4

Betty McCollum (DFL)
Gene Rechtzigel (GOP)
Susan Sindt (WEED)

US House – District 5

Ilhan Omar (DFL)
Lacy Johnson (GOP)
Michael Moore (WEED)

Minneapolis: City Question 1

Redistricting of Wards and Park Districts

Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to allow ward and park district boundaries to be reestablished in a year ending in 1 and to allow the use of those new boundaries for elections in that same year; to allow ward and park district boundaries to be modified after the legislature has been redistricted to establish City precinct boundaries; to provide that an election for a Council Member office required by Minnesota law in a year ending in 2 or 3 after a redistricting shall be for a single 2-year term; and to clarify that a regular election means a regular general election?

Minneapolis: City Question 2

Special Municipal Elections

Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to comply with Minnesota election law related to uniform dates for special municipal elections and to provide that a special election be held on a legal election day under Minnesota law that is more than 90 days from a vacancy in the office of Mayor or Council Member?

Minneapolis School Board At-Large

Michael Dueñes
Kim Ellison

Minneapolis School Board District 2

KerryJo Felder (Incumbent)
Sharon El-Amin

Minneapolis School Board District 4

Adriana Cerrillo
Christa Mims

Saint Paul School Board

Jamila Mame
Jim Vue
James Farnsworth
Keith Hardy
Omar Syed
Charlotte “Charlie” Castro

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (Statewide)

Paul Thissen
Michelle MacDonald

2nd District (Ramsey County) Court 8

Ngozi Akubuike
Pat Diamond

STATE LEGISLATURE

Senate District 59

Bobby Joe Champion (DFL)
Paul Anderson (GOP)

House District 59A

Fue Lee (DFL)
Marcus Harcus (WEED)

House District 59B

Esther Agbaje (DFL)
Alan Shilepsky (GOP)
Lisa Neal-Delgado (GREEN)

Senate District 60

Kari Dziedzic (DFL)
Mary Holmberg (GOP)

House District 60A

Sydney Jordan (DFL)
John Holmberg (GOP)
Calvin Lee Carpenter (Veteran’s Party of America)

House District 60B

Mohammed Noor (DFL) (Unopposed)

Senate District 61

Scott Dibble (DFL)
Jennifer Zielinski (GOP)

House District 61A

Frank Hornstein (DFL)
Kurtis Fechtmeyer (GOP)

House District 61B

Jamie Long (DFL)
Lisa Pohlman (GOP)

Senate District 62

Omar Fateh (DFL)
Bruce Lundeen (GOP)

House District 62A

Hodan Hassan (DFL)
Arjun Kataria (GOP)

House District 62B

Aisha Gomez (DFL)
Ross Tenneson (GOP)

Senate District 63

Patricia Torres Ray (DFL)
Diane Napper (GOP)
Chris Wright (WEED)

House District 63A

Jim Davnie (DFL)
Penny Arcos (GOP)
David Wiester (WEED)

House District 63B

Emma Greenman (DFL)
Frank Pafko (GOP)
Dennis Schuller (WEED)

Senate District 64

Erin Murphy (DFL)
Sharon Anderson (GOP)
Patricia Jirovec McArdell (WEED)

House District 64A

Kaohly Her (DFL)
Sherry Schack (GOP)

House District 64B

Dave Pinto (DFL)
Georgia Dietz (GOP)

Senate District 65

Sandra Pappas (DFL)
Paul Holmgren (GOP)

House District 65A

Rena Moran (DFL)
Amy Anderson (GOP)

House District 65B

Carlos Mariani (DFL)
Margaret Mary Stokely (GOP)

Senate District 66

John Marty (DFL)
Greg Copeland (GOP)

House District 66A

Alice Hausman (DFL)
Brett Rose (GOP)

House District 66B

Athena Hollins (DFL)
Mikki Murray (GOP)

Senate District 67

Foung Hawj (DFL)
Alexander Deputie (GOP)

House District 67A

John Thompson (DFL)
John Stromenger (GOP)

House District 67B

Jay Xiong (DFL)
Fred Turk (GOP)

Regarding the YAY WEED parties:

There are two weed parties, the “Grassroots – Legalize Cannabis” and the “Legal Marijuana Now” parties. They are, under state law, “Major” parties in the State of Minnesota. Would you believe that as of August 23rd, neither one has a working website?

There are, I am sure, differences between the two parties — for example, the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis party is at least willing to acknowledge that if marijuana legalization is actually something they care about, they should be concerned about the obvious Republicans hopping onto tickets in swing Senate districts to try to swing the race to the Republicans, since if the DFL has a pretty goddamn great marijuana legalization bill in the House and what’s going to keep that from becoming state law is the CURRENT REPUBLICAN CONTROL OF THE STATE SENATE. Also, the Legal Marijuana Party has a candidate whose slogan includes the phrase “No Whores.”

But, fundamentally, the complete inability of both of these two “major parties” to so much as have a functioning website for their party and their candidates makes me want to note, for the record, that they are both embodying every stereotype of the stoners I remember from high school.

Dear organizers for the “Legal Marijuana Now” party and the “Grassroots – Legalize Cannabis” party: the State of Minnesota may be required by state law to engage in the pretense that you are “major” parties, but I am not.

And hey, for everyone else who’s read to the bottom:

I took the time to look over on Donors Choose for some Minneapolis public school teachers who could use some financial help during These Difficult Times and in particularly with distance learning. I’ve got three small projects, and one big project, to point everyone to.

  1. Ms. Stenzel, a teacher at Lucy Laney (an elementary school in North Minneapolis), is thinking about ways to doing distance learning with her students and would like a rock tumbler to get them interested in geology. She needs $167.
  2. Ms. Stenzel would also like some books for herself to help her improve her teaching. Titles include books on teaching kids mindfulness and self-calming strategies, and also books on anti-racism. She needs $326.
  3. Ms. Stephanie, who teaches autistic and developmentally disabled students at Andersen United School, would like materials that she can send to her students’ homes to help them engage with distance learning. She needs $581.
  4. Finally: Ms. Stone is a teacher at Cityview Elementary in North Minneapolis. She will be teaching third graders this year, and to help them succeed with distance learning, she is requesting a set of Chromebooks for her class. To equip this class of children with the basic technology they will need for distance learning will require another $8,456 to be raised by October 3rd. Can my readers raise that much? If not, can they at least get it to within sight of the finish line so a corporation or foundation will be inspired to swoop in and match our donations? I think it’s worth trying.

(I don’t have a patreon or a ko-fi but I take a lot of satisfaction from seeing projects fund after I point people at them. Please donate!)

 

Election 2020: Primary Sample Ballot & Uncle Hugo’s Fundraiser

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MINNEAPOLIS WARD 6 CITY COUNCIL (NOT A PRIMARY)

  1. Abdirizak Bihi
  2. Saciido Shaie
  3. Alex PalaciosAlthough I have not re-visited this one and Saciido Shaie did not register a campaign committee and Abdirizak Bihi did not file a campaign finance report. The candidates who were actually following the rules on that were Alex Palacios, Jamal Osman, and AJ Awed. Despite him having not initially made my top three, I might switch to AJ Awed at this point if I lived in the district.

MINNEAPOLIS SCHOOL BOARD

At-Large — Michael Dueñes
District 4 — Adriana Cerillo but possibly Mims in the general, undecided

US SENATE

Tina Smith, but if you want a further-to-the-left option in the primary you can vote for Paula Overby. If you’re voting in the Republican party primary for some reason, totally vote for Bob “Again” Carney.

US HOUSE

CD 4 — Betty McCollum
CD 5 — Ilhan Omar

MN SENATE

59 — Bobby Joe Champion
62 — Omar Fateh
65 — Laverne McCartney Knighton

MN HOUSE

59B — Esther Agbaje
63A — Jim Davnie
63B — Emma Greenman
66B — Athena Hollins
67A — Couldn’t decide, both candidates look awesome ETA TO ADD: a comment on my post says that Murphy actually dropped out, so Thompson it is.

FYI, I spent July mostly focused on revising my novel, CHAOS ON CATNET, which is turned into my editor and incidentally available for pre-order on Amazon. This meant I didn’t get some of these write-ups done in time to be useful, unfortunately. But also, these days I usually try to run some sort of fundraiser and I didn’t have the bandwidth to think about what to point people to.

But, a couple of days ago I got an update on the Save Uncle Hugo’s fundraiser, which included some updates from owner Don Blyly. I’ve been meaning to write about this in more detail, because Don has always been unusually forthcoming about the ups and downs of owning a small business, and the stuff he’s run into just trying to get basic stuff like a demolition permit (his store was burned to the ground but he will need to pay someone to scoop out and haul the rubble, for which he needs a permit) has been nightmarish, the kind of absolute bullshit that makes me want to scream, “does the city of Minneapolis want to transform the Lake Street corridor into a mix of checks-cashed-here places and chain stores? Is that their goal?” (It’s not just Don running into this; Ruhel Islam, the owner of Gandhi Mahal, has spoken about some of the obstacles too.)

Anyway: Uncle Hugo’s is one of my favorite stores on the planet, so much so that in my fictional Future Minneapolis in Chaos on CatNet (which takes place approximately 10 years in the future), I gave them a beautiful new storefront on Lake Street with a sculpture of a rocket ship on the front of the building. I think Don wants to rebuild if he possibly can. I would encourage my so-enthusiastic-they-wish-to-send-money-somewhere readers to please contribute to the Uncle Hugo’s rebuilding fund or buy one of their t-shirts or sweatshirts. You can also, as it happens, order a signed copy of Catfishing on CatNet from him — he’s running a mail-order business from his house at the moment.