Down to one board member and short on cash, St. Paul DFL goes on hiatus

Yahoo

a day ago

Leading up to this year's November election, the St. Paul DFL will skip the tradition of endorsing a mayoral candidate. It won't be vetting candidates for the sole city council race in a special election this August. In fact, the capital city chapter may not be issuing statements at all any time soon.
Dieu Do stepped down as chair of the St. Paul DFL last July at the end of her two-year term. Since then, no one has stepped up to take her place, leaving the future of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party's St. Paul chapter up in the air. Rick Varco, a political director with the labor union SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, remains the party treasurer and the only person left on the executive board. The unit ended last year with less than $3,000 in the bank.
'The St. Paul DFL has not disbanded but we did not hold 2025 caucuses,' said Varco, who was traveling this week and communicated by email. 'I am the only current officer of five positions.'
With key board positions vacant and the chapter short on funds, the St. Paul DFL has chosen not to host a citywide endorsing convention this summer for mayor. Nor will it host a ward convention for the open Ward 4 seat on the St. Paul City Council, which represents Hamline-Midway and most of four surrounding neighborhoods.
Varco noted that as a result of a successful ballot measure in November 2024, future mayoral and council elections will line up with presidential elections, the next one being in 2028, and the party unit's constitution needs to be adjusted accordingly.
Adjusting the constitution requires caucuses, ward conventions and a city convention, which cost between $10,000 and $20,000, he said. According to filings with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, the party's cash balances at the end of last December totaled $2,800.
Varco is currently working with the state DFL and others 'to develop an alternative plan to adjust our constitution,' he wrote. 'That should put the St. Paul DFL in a position to make endorsements in the future.'
For now, some political candidates feel shut out.
'It's … disappointing that I haven't had the chance for meaningful dialogue with party members about how we can improve our city's performance,' said Yan Chen, a biophysicist and mayoral candidate in the November election. 'I am a proud DFLer, and I will make that clear to voters. I also intend to seek support from DFL-aligned organizations, including organized labor, to at least honor the 'L' in DFL.'
Garrison McMurtrey, a former chair and outreach director for the St. Paul DFL, was elected to the Ramsey County Board in February. He confirmed he no longer serves on the St. Paul DFL executive committee and referred further questions to Varco. Other former members did not respond to requests for comment.
The St. Paul DFL's primary role is to endorse and back candidates for city council, school board and mayor; candidates for federal, state and county offices seek the endorsement of their respective party chapters. For example, U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum has repeatedly received the endorsement of the CD4 DFL, representing the fourth Congressional district.
Megan Thomas, a longtime organizer within the party who was otherwise not intimately familiar with the status of the St. Paul board, said that like any volunteer-run organization, it was not uncommon for participants to 'drift away' with time. After the seven city council members were elected in 2023, the unit's major work was done.
The St. Paul DFL's website has barely been updated since sometime two years ago. A landing page tells visitors there are seven council elections 'this year,' referring to November 2023.
The party unit's hiatus comes even as St. Paul and other blue cities have been buffeted by federal cuts to major institutions and the Trump administration ramps up rhetoric and policy at odds with Democratic priorities. Thomas and others acknowledged it's an unfortunate time to take a break.
Still, over the years, even some past presidents of the St. Paul political unit have questioned why it needs to host endorsing conventions at all, given that it concerns itself with non-partisan races. The central picture on the chapter website's landing page features 11 DFL-endorsed elected officials who hold non-partisan roles: Six of the seven members of the city council, four members of the St. Paul School Board board and the mayor. Officially, those are all non-partisan positions; no party affiliation is listed on the voter ballot.
The St. Paul DFL isn't the only St. Paul unit of a major party to fall under the radar. The last candidates to run for public office in St. Paul under the Green Party banner were mayoral candidate Elizabeth Dickinson in 2017 and council candidate Danielle Swift in 2019. Neither won office.
It's unclear who was the last candidate to hold the official endorsement of the St. Paul Republican City Committee, but it's been a while. Eva Ng ran for mayor with the Republican endorsement in 2009 against then-St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, a DFLer, and three Republicans — Kevin Huepenbecker, Pat Igo and Lizz Paulson — sought school board seats in 2011.
While not officially a political party, the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America was active in the 2023 council elections and is supporting Cole Hanson in Ward 4 this summer.
Meanwhile, some say culling the field before election day through the endorsement process undermines the point of ranked-choice voting. Ranked-choice elections allow an unlimited number of candidates for mayor or city council onto the general election ballot. Whether that makes DFL endorsements outdated or more important than ever in helping voters understand a busy field remains a matter of perspective, but there's now less incentive for candidates to drop out of a race after failing to secure the endorsement.
In 2019, hours after promising to abide by the party's endorsement process, more than one candidate for the Ward 1 office who had not received the endorsement decided to run in the general election anyway.
Also of concern, endorsing conventions have sometimes descended into chaos, rancor and accusations of malfeasance, and the cost and complication involved with hosting conventions have discouraged volunteers.
In 2019, council candidate Anika Bowie filed a complaint with the state party alleging voting irregularities and inappropriate volunteer behavior at the Ward 1 convention. Nothing much came of it, and Council Member Dai Thao was able to retain the party's endorsement.
Four years later, when the April 2023 Ward 1 convention ended without endorsement and a mass delegate walk-out after nearly 10 hours, some in the Central High School auditorium audience wondered whether the process had simply more to confuse and alienate non-English speakers and first-time attendees than invite them into a big tent. No one received the endorsement, but Bowie won the eight-way race for the open Ward 1 seat that November.
Beth Commers, a past-president of the St. Paul DFL, foresees better days ahead for the local party under Varco's direction.
'The St. Paul DFL was impacted by the switch to even-year elections,' Commers said. 'The St. Paul DFL needs to reconfigure to endorse like the Ramsey County DFL operates. … Varco has a clear plan.'
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