[ Minnesotans voted to reelect the attorney general who prosecuted
Derek Chauvin. The result holds important lessons for the Democratic
Party on its approach to criminal justice.]
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KEITH ELLISON’S NARROW VICTORY  
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William P. Jones
November 23, 2022
Dissent
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_ Minnesotans voted to reelect the attorney general who prosecuted
Derek Chauvin. The result holds important lessons for the Democratic
Party on its approach to criminal justice. _

Keith Ellison speaking in Minneapolis in 2018 , (Lorie Shaull/Flickr
// Dissent)

 

Overshadowed by the battle for control of Congress, Keith Ellison’s
narrow reelection as Minnesota’s Attorney General holds important
lessons for Democrats as they seek to articulate positions on criminal
justice. Elected in 2018 on a pledge to be the “People’s
Lawyer,” Ellison entered this years’ race with a strong record of
protecting worker and consumer rights and leading the successful
prosecution of the police officers accused of killing George Floyd and
Daunte Wright in 2020. That he won by just 20,000 votes (a fraction of
his 100,000 vote margin of victory in 2018) revealed how successfully
Republicans narrowed debates over police reform and crime into
simplistic narratives about “law and order.” But it also
demonstrated that Democrats can win on platforms that deliver racial
and economic justice as well as public safety.

Asked why he traded a safe seat and a leadership role in Congress for
what many viewed as a step down to state office in 2018, Ellison
explained that with Republicans in control of the White House and
Senate, state attorneys general had key roles to play in countering
attacks on civil liberties, consumer and environmental protections,
and other “things the administration is doing to weaken rights, both
social and economic, of Americans. It is at the local level that fight
is being waged.” The first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, he
took a lead in opposing Trump’s Islamophobic travel ban while
targeting corporations for wage theft, negligent gun sales, misleading
marketing of opioids and profiteering on pharmaceuticals, and
overcharging for housing and healthcare. After the Supreme court
overturned _Roe v. Wade_, Ellison pledged to defend abortion rights
not only in Minnesota but also for people who would need to travel
from other states to end a pregnancy.

Although little of this gained notice outside of Minnesota,
Ellison’s prosecution of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George
Floyd won him praise from a broad range of Democratic Party
leadership. “It was an act of courage to take on that case the way
he did,” centrist Senator (and former prosecutor) Amy Klobuchar
stated. “Whatever future he wants to lay out for himself, there are
many of us who would support him in that,” leftist Representative
Pramila Jayapal gushed, stating that “the recognition of him and
what he did for our country—and it really is for our country, and
for Black people across the country—is immeasurable.”

Recognizing the resonance of Chauvin’s conviction, Republicans moved
quickly to neutralize its appeal. “Tim Walz, Mayor Frey, they all
sat on their hands while Minneapolis burned,” charged Ellison’s
challenger Jim Schultz, picking up a narrative established by other
Republicans who accused Democratic leaders of Minnesota and
Minneapolis with failing to prevent the uprising that followed
Floyd’s murder. Without mentioning Ellison or Floyd, Schultz linked
that charge to the prosecution of Chauvin by suggesting Democrats
“enflamed” unrest by criticizing the police. “We can see the
straight line from that period to the 100 murders in Minneapolis last
year and the incredible crime we’ve seen throughout the metro,”
Schulz claimed, linking the prosecution and protests to rising crime
rates in 2020. “What we need is support for law enforcement, not the
revolving door that we’ve seen.”

In the context of rising crime rates across the country, that
narrative proved potent for Schultz and other Republicans who offered
few concrete solutions to either crime or police misconduct. A
thirty-six-year-old corporate lawyer with no courtroom experience,
Schultz gained an early boost when the Minnesota Police and Peace
Officers Association, which had backed a Democrat in 2018 and had been
expected to endorse Ellison’s 2020 challenger, Doug Wardlow,
endorsed him four months before the GOP primary. “There are a lot of
law enforcement officers in the state right now that are afraid to do
their job—afraid of making a mistake then facing the potential of
losing your job, being charged, usually you’re found guilty within
48 hours of an incident and that’s tough,” the association stated
in explaining their endorsement, which helped Schultz beat Wardlow
handily in the August primary.

Ironically, moderate Democrats narrowed Ellison’s options by
distancing themselves from any discussion of police reform. Facing his
own reelection challenges, Governor Tim Walz responded to charges that
he supported “defunding the police” by authorizing increased
funding for the state patrol, diverting COVID-19 funding into local
police budgets, and increasing state aid to help local departments
hire more officers. He and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey spoke out
forcefully against a ballot initiative that would have replaced the
Minneapolis Police Department with a “public-health oriented”
Department of Public Safety. “I know to my core that we have
problems,” Frey said. “I also know to my core that we need police
officers,” he added, echoing the Republican talking point that
reform meant decreasing the police force. Opposition from Walz and
Frey, along with Democratic Senators Klobuchar and Tina Smith, was key
to convincing many voters that support for the initiative would
“defund the police.”

The only statewide candidate, Democrat or Republican, who lived in the
urban working-class communities most threatened by both violent crime
and police brutality, Ellison pushed back from a position of strength.
Backing the Minneapolis initiative, he argued that rather than
“defund,” it would augment police with mental health and social
workers who were better prepared to deal with incidents like the one
that ended with Floyd’s murder. When Schultz charged Ellison with
endorsing “the most reckless and extreme public safety policy in
Minnesota history,” the attorney general responded, “I think you
don’t really know what you’re talking about. You don’t live in
the city. You’re not part of this thing. You’re just standing from
a distance throwing rocks.” The campaign supporting the initiative
also insisted it would result in “an expansion of public safety.”

With Ellison holding a slight lead in the race, Republicans doubled
down on efforts to link him with crime and chaos. The Republican
Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which had supported the “Stop
the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021, funded a series of television
ads calling Ellison the “criminal’s choice” and suggesting he
had instigated the rise in crime by shielding criminals from
prosecution. Although Schultz distanced himself from the misleading
and racially coded ads, Democrats filed a complaint with the state
Campaign Finance Board alleging illegal coordination between his
campaign and RAGA. By late October, polls showed Schulz pulling ahead
in the race.

Ultimately, Ellison won reelection. But the outcome was far closer
than the comparative strengths of the candidates suggest it should
have been. Minnesota Democrats have not lost a statewide election
since 2006, and Walz’s margin with the same electorate was nearly
ten times that of Ellison. That difference in part reflects the lower
profile of the attorney general’s race, and reluctance of some white
voters to support a Black Muslim from Minneapolis; but it also
reflected the challenges posed by substantive criminal justice reform.
While Walz and other moderates were able to avoid discussions of
racial justice and outbid Republican promises to increase funding for
police, Ellison demonstrated the Democrats can win with the more
nuanced and progressive agenda that he brought to his work as attorney
general.

_[WILLIAM P. JONES is a historian of race and class in the United
States and a member of Dissent’s editorial board. He is author,
most recently, of The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom and the
Forgotten History of Civil Rights.]_

* criminal justice
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* Keith Ellison
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* 2022 Elections
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* Democratic Party
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* Minnesota
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* Racial Justice
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* George Floyd
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* Derek Chauvin
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* Black Lives Matter
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* police reform
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* 2024 Elections
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