Dear John,

Thank you to everyone who joined the hearing tonight and for your flexibility when Chair Mary Kiffmeyer changed the time. And a huge thanks to all of you who submitted testimony and sent emails to protest the Ranked Choice Voting Prohibition Bill, SF 708, in the Senate. We flooded the committee with opposition to this anti-democratic bill, sending 567 emails and 81 letters of testimony telling senators in no uncertain terms that this bill must be rejected. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts! You are truly on the forefront of protecting our democracy.

Tonight we heard impassioned testimony against the attempt to preempt local control and ban RCV in Minnesota. Stan Lockhart, Former Chairman of the Utah GOP, recounted the positive experience Utah has had with RCV at the local level, and shared his belief that “RCV promotes what America's Founders had in mind when they created our representative Republic: it lends itself to an informed citizenry, engaged electorate, and an educated voter.” Red Wing Councilmember Evan Brown similarly urged the committee to reject the bill: “Instead of removing the ability of cities to best decide what works for them and their citizens,...this committee should instead focus on consistent rules for all cities. . . to be able to easily and consistently implement ranked choice voting.” We agree!

FairVote Minnesota Executive Director Jeanne Massey asked the question we are all asking, “Why would the legislature thwart local-driven efforts to do what they believe is in their own best interest and seek to overturn the vote of citizens deciding how they want to run their local elections?”

Only three opponents testified in support of this backward bill and provided no answers to those critical questions, but instead made misleading statements about how RCV works and the ballot measure victory in Bloomington. At the end of the hearing, the bill was “laid over.” That means there won’t be a vote on SF 708 on the senate floor. It’s possible the bill could be included as a measure in a future omnibus bill, but we will let you know if that happens. While the hearing was frustrating in its partisanship and lack of attention to facts, it also underscored why we need Ranked Choice Voting now more than ever.

Stay tuned for next steps in the House. And save the date for a briefing on the pro-RCV bills in the House and Senate with the authors on March 16 at 11 am! We’ll be in touch with more details.

THANK YOU for everything you are doing to move this legislation forward!
 

Your Fairvote MN team