1. How policing issues affected two recent big-city mayoral elections
2. Florida, Maryland see leadership changes in ALJ corps
3. Five states to hold primaries, runoffs on June 23

How policing issues affected two recent big-city mayoral elections

Policing policy is a regular election issue, one that will likely see greater attention during the 2020 election cycle. A look back at our coverage of recent mayoral elections in Minneapolis (2017) and Chicago (2019) showed how the candidates in both races, and in particular the two new mayors elected—Jacob Frey in Minneapolis and Lori Lightfoot in Chicago—addressed the topic. 

Frey and Lightfoot both won election as first-time mayors of major Midwestern cities where policing was frequently discussed. Demonstrations and protests have occurred in many American cities—including Minneapolis and Chicago—in response to George Floyd’s death and the behavior of police in general. 

Here's a look at the two most recent mayoral elections in those cities:

Minneapolis mayoral election (2017)

In the 2017 Minneapolis race, then-council member Frey defeated incumbent Mayor Betsy Hodges and 13 other candidates after securing a majority on the fifth round of tabulations in the city’s ranked-choice voting system. Although municipal elections in Minneapolis are officially nonpartisan, the mayoral candidates included eight Democrats, one Libertarian, one independent, and six who were affiliated with minor parties.

Policing and public safety were top issues in the race because of several high-profile officer-involved shootings in the city proper and surrounding suburbs. This included the July 2016 shooting death of Philando Castile by police in nearby St. Anthony and the July 2017 shooting of Justine Damond by a Minneapolis officer after Damond called police to report a potential sexual assault.

Here’s what Hodges and Frey said about policing policy during their campaigns:

• Hodges, who was first elected in 2013, made changes in the police department during her first term. She oversaw the implementation of a police body-worn camera program and under her administration, the city's police department started requiring de-escalation and bias training and strengthened its misconduct reporting and use-of-force policies. She also requested the resignation of the police chief after the Damond shooting and nominated then-Assistant Chief Medaria Arradondo to become the city’s first African American police chief.

• Frey advocated improving the training and mental screening of officers and strengthening body camera requirements. He did not commit to retaining Arradondo as police chief before the election but retained him once in office. Frey also supported adopting regular scheduling of officers to neighborhoods to improve relationships between residents and the police, creating incentives to increase the number of police officers living in Minneapolis, and implementing changes to use-of-force policies.

Click here for more information regarding policing policy proposals discussed by other mayoral candidates during the 2017 Minneapolis mayoral elections.

Chicago mayoral election (2019)

Crime and policing influenced Chicago’s 2019 mayoral race in two ways. 

First, the city saw an increase in violent crime with 762 murders occurring in 2016, the largest number of homicides in nearly 20 years. Rahm Emanuel, who was first elected in 2011 and re-elected in 2015, announced in September 2018 that he would not seek re-election.

Second, beginning in December 2015 the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) began an investigation of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) that resulted in a 2017 report stating officers had engaged “in a pattern or practice of using force, including deadly force, that is unreasonable.” This report recommended the city agree to a consent decree—a plan supervised by a federal judge. The decree began in March 2019, just before the end of Emanuel’s second term. 

The nonpartisan election for mayor in February 2019 included 14 candidates with the top two vote-getters advancing to a runoff. Lori Lightfoot (D), a recent president of the Chicago Police Board and co-chair of the city’s Police Accountability Task Force, received 17.5% in the general elections and Toni Preckwinkle (D), president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, received 16%. In the April 2, 2019, runoff election between the two women, Lightfoot won, 74% to 26%.

The two top candidates had similar platforms on policing issues. Both touted the necessity of the consent decree, their eagerness to implement it, and each claimed to have superior professional experience for getting that job done. Both runoff candidates also had other policy proposals regarding policing. 

• Lightfoot said she wanted to address illegal gun possession and violence through “a proactive, coordinated response led by federal law enforcement officials, strengthening state and federal gun laws, creating a centralized department within CPD responsible for tracking illegal guns throughout the city, and strategically deploying police cameras in neighborhoods.”

• Preckwinkle said she wanted the police department to become the “most effective police department in the country, by improving training, supervision, promotion, collaboration and crime-solving capacity within the department and demanding real improvement in homicide clearance and overall crime reduction.”

       

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Florida, Maryland see leadership changes in ALJ corps 

Florida and Maryland implemented changes to the leadership of those states’ administrative law judge (ALJ) corps earlier this month. State administrative law judges are officials who preside over state-level agency proceedings and aim to resolve disputes between either agencies and private parties or between two private parties. 

The scope and authority of state ALJs vary according to their respective states. While some states allow state ALJs to administer rulings, others only view state ALJ determinations as recommendations. The governor's power to appoint head ALJs in certain states helps the executive branch direct and oversee state administrative activity.

Here’s what happened in Florida and Maryland last week:

• Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) appointed Chung Ki Pak on June 9 to serve as the state’s new chief ALJ. Pak will manage the roughly 60 ALJs employed by the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings, which provides Maryland state agencies with ALJs to hold hearings and adjudicate disputes. 

• Florida Chief ALJ John MacIver, an appointee of Governor Ron DeSantis (R), resigned on June 9 to become counsel for the state's chief financial officer. DeSantis’ cabinet must approve MacIver’s replacement. Florida’s chief ALJ also serves as the director of the state Division of Administrative Hearings, which provides ALJs to state agencies, cities, counties, and independent government entities to adjudicate disputes.

Maryland and Florida are examples of states with centralized ALJ panels.  

Unlike federal ALJs, who are appointed by agency heads to hold administrative hearings at specific agencies, 27 states centralize their ALJ corps and provide ALJs to state agencies on request. The goal of the centralized ALJ structure is to protect procedural rights for citizens in administrative adjudication by ensuring that the presiding judge is independent of the agency that is a party to the case. 

The California Administrative Practice Act established the first state-level central ALJ panel in 1945. Local governments have also established central ALJ panels, including New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Cook County, Illinois.

Five states to hold primaries, runoffs on June 23

We’ve had two busy election days this month on June 2 and 9 and our Elections team covered 2,010 races for 1,657 offices across 19 states on those dates. No states held primaries on Tuesday—June 16. A chance for many of us to catch up on our sleep!

That break is short-lived as Kentucky, New York, and Virginia are holding statewide and congressional primaries and North Carolina and South Carolina will hold primary runoff elections on June 23. 

Kentucky and Virginia moved their statewide primaries from May 19 and June 9, respectively, in response to the coronavirus pandemic. In April, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) issued executive orders suspending the state's existing eligibility criteria for absentee voting and automatically sending absentee ballot applications to all eligible voters. 

As we look ahead to those June 23 elections, let’s take a quick look at one of the battleground primaries on that date—the Democratic primary for New York's 16th Congressional District.

Incumbent Eliot Engel, Jamaal Bowman, Chris Fink, and Sammy Ravelo are running for the Democratic nomination. Engel and Bowman have led the candidate field in endorsements and fundraising. According to Politico, "The race has become something of a proxy war between the Democratic establishment — most of which is lined up firmly behind Engel — and insurgents like [U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and Justice Democrats, a progressive group that is backing Bowman."

Engel was first elected in 1988 and has received endorsements from former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and the Congressional Black Caucus. He has emphasized his record in Congress and said that Bowman had "little history of involvement in our community and is not a real Democrat."

Bowman is a former middle school principal who was endorsed by U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Bowman said that Engel had "been in Congress for thirty years. During that time, he has voted for the war in Iraq, deregulating Wall Street, and building more prisons at a time we needed resources in the community for our children and families."

According to campaign finance reports through June 3, Engel led all four candidates in fundraising with $2 million, followed by Bowman with $971,000, Fink with $150,000, and Ravelo with $48,000.

Engel was unopposed in the 2104 and 2018 general elections and defeated Derickson Lawrence (People's Choice Congress), 95% to 5%, in 2016. The Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, and Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball all rate the general election as Safe or Solid Democratic.

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