Elections 2018: Minneapolis School Board At-Large

I didn’t write about this race in the primary because there were five candidates running in the primary, four of whom would advance to the general election, and I thought that surely Doug Mann would come in last and I could just write about this race in October. That is exactly what happened. There are four candidates running for two at-large seats (which is to say, seats that are supposed to represent the whole city).

On the ballot:

Kimberly Caprini (DFL-endorsed)
Sharon El-Amin
Josh Pauly (DFL-endorsed)
Rebecca Gagnon (Incumbent)

Kimberly Caprini and Josh Pauly are both DFL-endorsed. Rebecca Gagnon is an incumbent. There are two open seats, so you get to vote for two people (but you don’t get to rank people because school board races are controlled by state legislation and not by the city).

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Election 2018: Ramsey County Commissioner, District 3

I wrote about this during the primaries and would probably not have written about it again, but I got a cranky e-mail from Janice Rettman’s assistant (from a personal e-mail account, so there’s no particular reason to assume Janice sent her my way) wanting to set the record straight on a few things, so here we go.

On the ballot:

Trista MatasCastillo (endorsed by the DFL)
Janice Rettman (incumbent)

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Election 2018: 2nd District (Ramsey County) Judge, Court 14

There are two candidates on the ballot:

Robyn Ann Millenacker (Incumbent)
Marcus L. Almon

Here, have a cat picture, so that later I can put in a screen shot and it won’t take over as the “featured image.”

A picture of a cat

Seriously, that’s the only reason.

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Election 2018: 2nd District Court (Ramsey County), Judge 11

Revisiting the open seat now that we are down to two candidates. Here’s what I wrote back in August. Two candidates were eliminated in the primary.

On the ballot in November:

Adam Yang
Scott Flaherty

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Election 2018: Minneapolis City Question

There is a City Charter referendum on the Minneapolis ballot this year, asking the following question:

City Question

Remove Area and Spacing Requirements for Liquor Licenses

Shall the Minneapolis City Charter be amended to remove from the City Charter the area and spacing requirements pertaining to liquor licenses?

You vote either YES or NO.

Coverage I’ve found:

Referendum may expand restaurant liquor licensing, Southwest Journal

Ballot Question #1 on November 6 City Ballot, Fulton Neighborhood Association

YesOn1, from the restaurant owners who would like to be able to serve cocktails

Minneapolis neighborhood restaurants fight for the right to serve cocktails, Star Tribune

Basically, right now, if you are a restaurant owner whose building is on quaint little street corner that’s not a large commercial district, and you would like to serve wine, beer, and cocktails, you have to hire a lobbyist to get you an exemption from the state legislature in order to serve the cocktails. You also have to get a liquor license from the city for all this stuff.

This will remove the step where you have to go to the legislature. (Licensing will work basically the same otherwise.) This does not affect retail establishments such as grocery stores and liquor stores — just restaurants.

This is a ridiculous thing to even have in the city charter and can definitely be handled by the licensing board. Vote yes.

 

 

 

 

 

Election 2018: Judge, Court of Appeals 2

This is a state-wide race: it is on everyone’s ballot. I almost didn’t notice it was contested, because the challenger didn’t have a website up in time to get it linked from the voter info portal site I use to see what the races even are.

Running:

Lucinda Ellen Jesson (Incumbent)
Anthony L. Brown

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Election 2018: Governor of Minnesota

This was a genuinely hard choice in the primaries but now that we’ve arrived at the general election, it is SUPER easy.

On the ballot:

Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan (DFL)
Jeff Johnson and Donna Bergstrom (Republican)
Chris Wright and Judith Schwartzbacker (Grassroots – Legalize Cannabis)
Josh Welter and Mary O’Connor (Libertarian)

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Election 2018: US House, 5th Congressional District

As I started up a video to watch Jennifer Zielinski talk at the State Fair along with Greg Ryan, it occurred to me that I could maybe devote a little less perfectionistic attention to the races where (a) nothing I find is going to change who I’d vote for and (b) nothing I write is going to change who wins.

This seat hasn’t been held by a Republican since 1962.  Keith Ellison’s lowest total was 56% the first time he ran, when the Republican and the Independence candidate more or less tied with 21%. The most impressively unbalanced result was in 2012, when Keith got 75% to the Republican’s 25%.

Given this, I’m sure it was a huge relief to the Republicans that Jennifer Zielinski stepped forward to run and the Republican slot didn’t go to Bob “Again” Carney, who published a book calling for Trump to be impeached, or Chris Chamberlin, who ran for President in 2016 under the name Vlad Draculea. Their best case in a race like this is a friendly, hardworking, basically normal person who will campaign and turn out the vote because it’ll help them in statewide races.

On the ballot:

Ilhan Omar (DFL)
Jennifer Zielinski (Republican)

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Election 2018: Hennepin County Attorney

The Hennepin County Attorney does a bunch of stuff but here’s the aspect of the job that tends to get the most attention these days: this is the person who decides whether to file charges against the cops when they shoot someone.

Currently, the job is held by Mike Freeman, who did file charges against Mohamed Noor for shooting Justine Damond, but did not file charges against the officers who shot Jamar Clark or Thurman Blevins. His opponent is Mark Haase. More below the cut.

On the ballot:

Mike Freeman (Incumbent)
Mark Haase (DFL-endorsed)

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Election 2018: Associate Justice Supreme Court 2

I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed the last few days, between the coming elections and the news cycle, and this morning thought, “why don’t I do an easy one?”

This is a super easy race because I did some in-depth research on the challenger, Michelle MacDonald, in 2014. Then updated it in 2016.  So really all you need to know is, never vote for Michelle MacDonald for anything, not even dogcatcher, not even if you’re a Republican. I did find some updates to the ongoing trainwreck that is her career, which I’ve put under the cut.

On the ballot:

Michelle MacDonald
Margaret Chutich (Incumbent)

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