There are three people running:
G. Tony Atwal (incumbent)
Elliott Nickell
P. Paul Yang
There’s basically one question in this race, or maybe two.
(Editing to add: turns out there are some additional questions!)
“Court 11” seems to refer to the seat that’s open, but I can’t figure out which judge is in it right now. That person is apparently not running for re-election as the seat seems to be wide open. There are four people running, two of whom will progress to the November ballot.
I just want to note for the record that I think this is a bad way to choose a judge. Even more than any other elective seat, I’m not in a good position to decide whether someone’s going to be good at the job. The Committee on Judicial Selection, which you apply to and which recommends appointments to the governor, and which was handling two seats this year, seems genuinely more qualified to me. (I have no idea why this seat wasn’t filled that way!)
(I’d also prefer retention elections to the system we’ve got now. In a retention election, you vote “should we keep this person, Y/N” when their term expires, and if people vote N, a new person gets appointed.)
The vast majority of what judges do isn’t partisan. “Did this person steal a car?” is not a particularly political question. But of course, politics leak in in all sorts of ways. I don’t want a judge who’s going to discriminate against a gay parent in a child custody case. I don’t want a judge who doesn’t take violence against women seriously. I don’t want a judge who assumes that police officers are always telling the truth. Etc.
Anyway — somewhat frustratingly, I’m going to note — all four of the candidates for this open seat appear to be basically fine and decent people who’d probably be good judges. Here they are:
Scott Michael Flaherty
Adam Yang
Jeffry Martin
Gregory J. Egan IV
This race abruptly got more interesting during the DFL State Convention, when Keith Ellison decided to run for Attorney General, opening up this seat. There was a mad dash to file; a bunch of the filers then withdrew after seeing someone they liked and respected (or didn’t think they could reasonably beat) in the contest. The 5th district DFL reconvened and held an endorsing convention, which I thought was an absolutely terrible idea under the circumstances. Anyway, it’s been an interesting year.
The good news: this is a very, very, very, very blue district. In 2016, Keith Ellison won with 69.1% of the vote (and the “Legal Marijuana Now” person got 8% of what was left.) If this is your district, you can vote your heart in the primary without asking yourself, “but will this person win in the general?” Also, if you want any input on your next congressional rep, you will definitely want to show up on August 14th.
The candidates running:
Frank Nelson Drake
Bobby Joe Champion
Jamal Abdi Abdulahi
Margaret Anderson Kelliher
Patricia Torres Ray
Ilhan Omar
There’s a primary here, but not much of one; I figure I can knock this one out before I go to bed.
On the ballot:
Muad Hassan
Reid Rossell
Betty McCollum
We have two Senate races this year. Amy Klobuchar is running for a regular six-year term. Tina Smith is running to finish out Al Franken’s term. This is the Tina race. Not surprisingly, it’s more hotly contested.
Whoever wins this election will serve for two years, instead of six, and will run for re-election (or, I guess, decide they’re sick of the job) in 2020.
Running in the DFL primary for this Senate seat:
Nick Leonard
Ali Chehem Ali
Richard Painter
Tina Smith
Greg Iverson
Christopher Lovell Seymore Sr.
We have two Senate races this year. Amy Klobuchar is running for a regular six-year term. Tina Smith is running to finish out Al Franken’s term. This is the Amy race, rather than the Tina race.
Running in the DFL primary for this Senate seat:
Steve Carlson
Stephen A. Emery
David Robert Groves
Leonard J. Richards
Amy Klobuchar
The quick, easy tl;dr answer here is to vote for Amy Klobuchar, but that’s not what you people come here for, so read on to find out, among other things, who Leonard J. Richards is.
We have primaries in a month so I should really get started with this.
Here’s how Minnesota primaries work: you get a ballot. One page is the partisan page, and it is divided in half. There is a DFL side, and there is a Republican side. You pick the party you want to vote in and vote in only that party’s races. You cannot vote in the Republican race for Governor and the DFL race for Senator. You definitely cannot vote in both. If you try, your ballot will get rejected as a spoiled ballot and nothing will get counted. (If you’re at a polling place, you can turn in your ballot for a fresh ballot and try again.)
There is also a page of nonpartisan races. You can vote in all of these regardless of whether you voted on the DFL side or the Republican side of the main ballot.
The primary is August 14th and there are a whole lot of primary races this year so I am going to prioritize the DFL side of the ballot, probably to the exclusion of the Republicans. You’ll get my opinion of the Republican primary winners when I blog the general. Spoiler: they all suck.
In Minnesota, you can find your own ballot by plugging your address into the Secretary of State “My Ballot” site, here: https://myballotmn.sos.state.mn.us/
And you can register to vote here: https://mnvotes.sos.state.mn.us/VoterRegistration/VoterRegistrationMain.aspx
Every year I sit down to write this and think, “what am I even going to come up with this year? I have used up all possible Bad Gift Ideas and am doubtless in reruns at this point” and then I start poking around looking at what’s available for purchase on Amazon:
This is a wine-bottle holder and it’s supposed to look like the unicorn is drinking your wine. I guess.
And I realize that I have barely scratched the surface of astonishingly terrible objects that one could give to those people to whom one is required by circumstance and etiquette to give gifts.
Maybe your office has a Secret Santa exchange, and you don’t officially have to participate except at your last performance review you got dinged for “not being enough of a team player, so you kinda do have to participate, and then you get assigned to buy a gift for that person who puts all their calls on speakerphone and leaves dishes in the office sink. Or maybe you’ve tried to talk your family into just exchanging festive greetings and this resulted in DRAMA so you’ve resigned yourself to buying gifts forever for that family member you try not to get stuck next to during the meal.
Sometimes you’re shopping for a gift because it’s worth that $15 to keep the peace and even though you know that, you resent every moment trying to figure out what would please this person. And that’s where my shopping guide comes in! Free yourself from the burden of trying to make an asshole happy, and embrace the idea of giving them something that won’t.
There are certain basic principles that apply every year. It should be cheap, but untraceably cheap. (Buying them a hand-crocheted who-knows-what for $2 at a thrift shop and pretending it came from a craft show is a terrific idea but you will need to make sure it looks new and doesn’t have that distinctive, identifiable Smell Of Savers wafting from it.) It should be easy to get, and it should look like a gift you might honestly have picked out because you thought they’d like it.
(And a final disclaimer: I don’t actually buy gifts for anyone I don’t like, so if I have given you a bad gift in the past, I promise this was not an intentional slight!)
ON TO THE SHOPPING.
A quick reminder to those who don’t know this: I actually live in St. Paul (I lived in Minneapolis for 17 years, and started election blogging when I still lived in Minneapolis, but I moved across the river in 2012.) These are the people I would be voting for — I don’t actually vote for any of them.
MAYOR
All my posts on the Minneapolis Mayoral race.
CITY COUNCIL
Ward 1
Ward 2
Cam Gordon is running unopposed.
Ward 3
Ward 4
Ward 5
Ward 6
Ward 7
Ward 8
Ward 9
Ward 10
Ward 11
I’ll add to this one — whichever you rank first, you should definitely rank the other second. They’re both awesome.
Ward 12
Ward 13
BOARD OF ESTIMATE AND TAXATION
BET analysis here. (Carol and David are unopposed on the ballot.)
PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSIONERS AT-LARGE
(Note: there are three open seats, but order matters.)
Park Board At-Large Race analysis here. All Park Board posts (including my analysis of the Political Cycle of Life) here.
PARK AND RECREATION COMMISSIONERS, DISTRICT SEATS
District 1
Park Board District 1 analysis here.
District 2
Park Board District 2 analysis here.
District 3
Park Board District 3 analysis here.
District 4
Park Board District 4 analysis here.
District 5
Park Board District 5 analysis here.
District 6
Park Board District 6 analysis here.
And, hey, was my analysis useful to you this year? Are you thinking to yourself, “wow, I wish this fine person had a Patreon link”? I do not have a Patreon link, but you could buy a copy of my latest book (a short story collection) or one of my two ebook-only collections (Comrade Grandmother or Gift of the Winter King). Or! For a limited time only (the next month), you can donate to my fundraiser for the Bridge For Youth!(Because it’s specifically my fundraiser I can see how much my fans have donated,which is pretty awesome.) The Bridge for Youth is a Twin Cities non-profit that provides counseling, support, shelter, and services (including long-term transitional services) to homeless teens (and even younger children — their shelter houses kids as young as ten.)
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to vote tomorrow!
So the Board of Estimate and Taxation has two open seats and two people on the ballot:
David Wheeler
Carol Becker
John Edwards of WedgeLIVE is also running a write-in campaign. Commentary below the cut.
Will Tell Stories For Food 