Tag Archives: Election 2024

Election 2024: Sample Ballot/Index of Posts

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Greetings to everyone coming to my site on their phone from a voting booth! For your convenience I’ve put links to (hopefully) all of this year’s races. If you scroll and don’t find what you’re looking for, try searching a candidate name, but remember, I only write about races that appear on the ballot in Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

People looking for information on races outside Minneapolis and Saint Paul: If it’s a partisan race, just vote for the DFLer. You can find MPR’s statewide voter’s guide here. Here’s my post from 2023 about researching a race from the voting booth. If you’re voting in a judicial race with an incumbent, vote for the incumbent (especially if the challenger is GOP-endorsed). (There is one judicial race that is for an open seat. It’s well out of my area, though — Duluth — so you’re kind of on your own for that one.)

On to my recommendations!

US President: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz (obviously)

US Senate: Amy Klobuchar

US House 04: Betty McCollum
US House 05: Ilhan Omar
(Both links lead to the same post)

MN State House 61A: Katie Jones
(This one got a separate post because Katie Jones is running against a Green, rather than a Republican)

MN State House 51A, 59A, 59B, 60A, 60B, 61A, 61B, 62A, 62B, 63A, 63B, 64A, 64B, 65A, 65B, 66A, 66B, 67A, and 67B: Just vote for the DFLer

Constitutional Amendment 1 (Statewide): Yes (also, be sure to vote on this! leaving it blank counts as a “No.”)

Minneapolis School Board Member At-Large: Shayla Owodunni

Minneapolis School Board Member District 6: Greta Callahan, but this is one you should definitely go look at to see if you agree with me

Minneapolis School District Question 1: Yes

Saint Paul City Question 1 (Early Learning Subsidies): No, but this is another one you should go look at to see if you agree with me

Saint Paul City Question 2 (Moving City elections to Presidential years): No

Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court: Natalie Hudson

Associate Justice – Supreme Court 6: Karl Procaccini

Judge – Court of Appeals 12: Diane B. Bratvold

Judge – 2nd District Court 3 (Ramsey County): Timothy Carey

Judge – 2nd District Court 29 (Ramsey County): Timothy Mulrooney

Judge – 4th District Court 24 (Hennepin County): Matthew Frank

I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi but instead encourage people who want to reward all my hard work to donate to fundraisers. This year I am fundraising for YMCA Camp Northern Lights. Camp Northern Lights is a family camp, which is a camp that whole families attend together. My family went to Camp Du Nord (the other YMCA family camp) for many years, and my daughter Kiera has worked as a counselor at Camp Northern Lights for the last two summers. One of the things that makes Camp Northern Lights unique is their serious commitment to inclusion of families from communities that have been underrepresented at YMCA camps.

Last summer, Camp Northern Lights had a bad fire early in the summer — no one was hurt, but they lost their commercial kitchen and the housing for the counselors-in-training. They are hoping to raise enough money to rebuild an expanded kitchen. I have set up a fundraiser towards that goal. If you’d like to express your appreciation for the usefulness of this blog, you can show your love by donating to my fundraiser!

Election 2024: Statewide Constitutional Amendment

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I read something a while back that suggested saying “thank you for your patience” instead of “I’m so sorry for the delay.” So: thank you for your patience! I had some computer problems which I resolved by getting a new computer. Suboptimal timing, but here we are, it’s still September, early voting is just about to start, let’s do this!

Everyone in Minnesota this year will see a statewide constitutional amendment on our ballots. Here’s what it says:

Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund Renewal

Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to protect drinking water sources and the water quality of lakes, rivers, and streams; conserve wildlife habitat and natural areas; improve air quality; and expand access to parks and trails by extending the transfer of proceeds from the state-operated lottery to the environment and natural resources trust fund, and to dedicate the proceeds for these purposes?

So. As you probably know, we have a State Lottery. We created it back in the late 1980s, and dedicated 40% of that money to the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, which funds all the stuff mentioned above: water quality, habitat conservation, parks and trails, clean air. That “dedicated percentage” is provided by a law that expires in 2025. We’re voting to extend it to 2050. There’s some more info on this here and an article from MPR here.

The renewal also creates a community grant program that would reserve 1.5% for projects in “underserved communities,” which includes both historically marginalized groups and rural areas.

If it fails, the money will simply go into the general fund like the rest of the lottery money. This is basically a way to guarantee a revenue stream for the natural environment of Minnesota that can’t be turned into tax breaks for the rich if the GOP ever gets back into control.

I can’t find anyone campaigning against this. I couldn’t even find anyone seriously arguing against this in the comments on the editorial supporting it in the Star Tribune. It is broadly agreed to be a good idea. The main risk is that it just slips below the radar and people fail to vote on it because they don’t know much about it. Not voting is counted as a “no” vote.

I am voting yes on this. You should also vote yes! The question here is, “should we continue to spend 40% of lottery proceeds on the environment and natural resources of the state of Minnesota, as we’ve done for the last quarter century” and I think that’s an excellent idea.

I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, but I get a lot of satisfaction by pointing people at fundraisers that I can then see fund. I’m probably going to mix things up later but for now, if you’d like to make a donation to encourage my work, Ms. Pierce at Lucy Craft Laney school in North Minneapolis would like donations to buy snacks for her students and supplies like Lysol wipes (that schools with wealthier families just have the parents send in). She is also looking for funds to buy school supplies, learning materials, and classroom storage, rugs, and flexible seating.