The quaint situation where GOP AG candidate Jim Schultz is running upon a policy proposal dead set against the documented historical will and power held and exercised by his party cohort, Mary Kiffmeyer.
There is truth and there is half-baked hysteria and fear-mongering. Jim Schultz is running an "if it bleeds it leads" campaign for Attorney General. Keying in on violent crime he articulates no cost-benefit suggestion to lessen it, moreover, he offers no handgun regulatory reform policy or a suggestion even, with handguns clearly being the favored weapons of violent criminals.
Read that in the context that Schultz has never prosecuted nor defended a single criminal in his entire life. Or if he has he is not touting any such experience as he campaigns. Then - try reading it in a fair and balanced policy context where facts inconvenient to the Schultz fear-mongering approach come into play and define a more sincere fact-based context for policy and budget decision making.
Start with numbers, which any seasoned public law administrator (or wannabe) can see as irrefutable and suggestive of sensible risk-benefit prioritization.
Minnesota has passed another grim pandemic milestone as the state now counts more than 13,000 deaths connected with COVID-19.
The Minnesota Department of Health listed the figure Thursday in a weekly report that tallied 13,014 deaths overall, an increase of 36 fatalities since last week's data summary.
As the pandemic's death toll
continues to mount, health officials urged caution as COVID-19
indicators over the past week showed small signs of increased
hospitalizations in Minnesota, even as other readings suggested a small
decline in virus activity.
Data updated Thursday
by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed the number of
Minnesota counties listed at the high level for COVID-19 increased over
the past week from nine to 22. All seven counties in the Twin Cities
metro were listed at low level.
The annual Uniform Crime Report covers a year marked by unrest over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis,
staffing and morale problems within the police department in
Minnesota’s largest city, the COVID-19 pandemic — which caused a surge
in unemployment and other stresses on society — and a rise in violent
crime in many other American cities. But the report's purpose is mostly
to compile statistics for others to study, and it contains little
analysis.
Minnesota recorded 185 murders in 2020, up 58 percent from 117 in 2019. That broke the record of 183 set in 1995 when
Minneapolis alone had a record 97 homicides. The report said 75 percent
of the state's murders last year were committed with guns, up from 69
percent in 2019. The homicide “clearance rate” was 65 percent of cases
resulting in arrests, in line with 64 percent in 2019 but below the
closure rates for 2016-18.
Other significant trends included a
nearly 54 percent increase in arson to 710 fires after several years of
declines. Motor vehicle thefts rose nearly 20 percent to 13,662, the
most since 2005, amid a surge in carjackings. Bias crimes hit the
highest number in 15 years, with 223 incidents reported, and 41 percent
were motivated by bias against Black people. The value of property
stolen jumped nearly 55 percent to $216 million, with big increases in
thefts of food, grooming products, cash and vehicles.
Republicans seized on the data to portray Democrats as weak on crime, [...]
Minnesota saw 21% violent crime increase in 2021, according to new report
In the seven-county metro area (Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin,
Ramsey, Scott and Washington counties) violent crime rose by 23.9%,
while violent crime in greater Minnesota rose by 16% during the same
time period.
The
report offers an annual summary of crime data submitted by law
enforcement agencies throughout Minnesota. (Image taken from the state
report)
FIRST -
Most of the crimes reported in aggregate are not unusual, or out of the prosecurtorial skill set and purview of Minnesota's County Attorney office holders - i.e., not requiring special expertise or assistance of Attorney General personnel. Those elected locally handling local law enforcement has been the norm since statehood and before. Local responsibility. Local control.
THEN -
Look at the clear big killer in the public law arena by a factor of ten - Covid. If you were an administrator knowing this, where would you put your budget and enforcement priorities to attack the big killer?
KEEP THAT QUESTION IN MIND.
MARY KIFFMEYER
Not that this is the first time Mary Kiffmeyer has been the problem instead of any part of a solution. But Schultz continues as he does, while we can weigh underlying facts he'd like ignored; where, thanks to MinnPost, [May 11, 2022] we have a fair picture of truth.
Why Attorney General Keith Ellison is getting pushback at the Legislature for a plan to help prosecutors in Greater Minnesota
Ellison said the issue is “98
percent” about Republicans wanting to stymie a progressive attorney
general, one who is expected to face a tough reelection campaign this
fall.
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer said in a statement that Ellison had “plenty of time
and resources to shut down businesses last year,” and that “I think he
has enough time and resources to prosecute crime now.” MinnPost photo by Tom Olmscheid
Republicans who control the Minnesota
Senate have focused heavily this year on “tough on crime” legislation,
aiming to respond to a wave of violent crime and the defund-the-police
movement in the Twin Cities.
So one might think a small proposal
from the state attorney general to bolster a team helping county
attorneys prosecute complex criminal cases might be of interest. But so
far the Senate GOP has opposed a $1.82 million plan from Democratic AG
Keith Ellison to hire seven prosecutors that will primarily help
counties in Greater Minnesota.
Ellison is taking the omission
personally. He believes it has little to do with the team of prosecutors
or their stated goal, but rather is “98 percent” a GOP effort to stick
it to the progressive AG, who they have been reluctant to fund — and who
is expected to face a tough reelection campaign this fall.
“Because it’s completely irrational
and unconnected to any rational policy goal,” Ellison said when asked
why he believes the lack of support is because of his politics. “When
you strip away any rational policy goal, what are you left with?”
KEEP THAT QUESTION IN MIND.More MinnPost:
Ellison has been clashing with state
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer — a Big Lake Republican who chairs a committee with
oversight of his office — over several issues, such as Ellison’s
decision to sue several businesses that violated COVID restrictions put
in place by Gov. Tim Walz during the pandemic.
Covid. The big killer, dwarfing handguns even. More MinnPost:
The latest impasse has become a
high-profile one at the Capitol, where lawmakers are in their last two
weeks of session hashing out how to use a projected $9.25 billion
surplus.
On Thursday, Kiffmeyer said in a
statement that Ellison had “plenty of time and resources to shut down
businesses last year,” and that “I think he has enough time and
resources to prosecute crime now.”
What Ellison wants
Ellison this year wants a $2.3
million increase for his office’s budget, which totals roughly $26.2
million in the 2023 fiscal year. The money would pay for raises meant to
retain workers and add non-legal staff in IT, human resources,
communications or outreach positions.
Separately, the AG asked for seven
attorneys, plus two legal assistants, to help county attorneys prosecute
violent or complicated crimes like sex trafficking, white-collar fraud,
or other legal work like habeas corpus petitions.
Ellison said the extra staff to help
county attorneys has been a priority since he took office. Beyond that,
he has been advocating for increases to a small budget that has less
money in 2023 than the $26.8 million the Legislature allocated in 2002.
Yes, do more with less, in an election year while Kiffmeyer's party cohort Schultz is futzing around on the crime issue, but not touching with a ten foot pole the anti-crime funding issue; a/k/a selective attention self-serving in nature. As in a "Kiffmeyer, who's that" manner. More MinnPost:
The AG’s office has brought in [...] $300 million in settlements with opioid makers and distributors
under Ellison. But cash from that legal work does not come back to the
attorney general’s office, and Ellison says the settlements are evidence
that the AG’s office isn’t getting its due in the budget.
“Especially for county attorney offices in rural and outstate Minnesota like mine,” Hicken said.
Molly Hicken
Hicken
said half of Minnesota counties have just three or fewer attorneys in
the county prosecutor’s office and 24 — including Cook — have two or
fewer. Those attorneys have a huge portfolio, from prosecution to work
as general counsel for the county, handling civil cases and even sitting
in on county board meetings.
And while those prosecutors in
smaller counties have trial experience, they can’t specialize in “the
most serious of cases,” Hicken said, like murder, human trafficking, or
certain white-collar crime, because they don’t come up as frequently.
Those big cases can also eat up all of an office’s resources, leaving
nothing left for remaining legal work.
In such situations, county attorneys
often turn to the AG’s office, which has three attorneys in the unit
helping counties on complex cases. When Ellison took over, they had just
one.
Kathryn Lorsbach, the prosecutor in
Clearwater County, told the House committee that her office of two
attorneys and two support staff had to deal with two murder cases, a
school resource officer sexually abusing children and the Line 3 oil
pipeline protests between 2020 and 2021. That was at the same time as
the county was dealing with regular caseloads and stressed by the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Kathryn Lorsbach
So Lorsbach asked the AG’s office for help. “The
resources, support and knowledge base that they brought to these
high-stakes cases resulted in successful prosecutions,” she said.
Without that help, it would be hard
to achieve parity with metro counties, Lorsbach said. And while Hicken
said prosecutors would not abandon their duty to prosecute tough cases
without help from the AG, “all of the other legal work that this county
requires would have to fall by the wayside because something has to
give.”
[...]
Why Kiffmeyer is saying no
The House, which has a DFL majority,
included the $1.82 million plan within a larger public safety proposal
and would fund the $2.3 million for other staff and compensation, too.
But the Senate has not supported either proposal.
Kiffmeyer said Tuesday that the
Legislature did boost the AG’s budget significantly in recent years,
saying the funding was generous enough to draw questions from her GOP
colleagues. That budget was about $22 million between 2014 to 2019 and jumped several years in a row to a high of $28.7 million in 2022.
Kiffmeyer said if Ellison wants the
prosecutors to be a priority, he can shift money and personnel within
the office. And she jabbed at Ellison for suing 13 businesses or event
organizers over violating COVID-19 restrictions set by Walz during the
pandemic to limit spread of the disease before vaccines were widely
available.
“The attorney general seemed to have
plenty of time and resources to go out in rural Minnesota and shut
businesses down which I don’t see in his jurisdiction necessarily,”
Kiffmeyer said. “But he went out and used resources to do it. So I said,
‘Ok, this year you’ve got time and resources, use that for criminal
prosecution.’”
Ellison, whose mother died of
COVID-19, said the pandemic regulations were an effort to save lives and
that he had to prosecute those breaking the law. It would have been
unfair to let some businesses flout regulations while others were
adhering to them, he said.
Rather than fund the team of
prosecutors at the AG’s office, Kiffmeyer instead pushed $100,000 into
more training for prosecutors. That was four times the request of the
Minnesota County Attorneys Association, which had asked for $25,000. The
association has seen lots of turnover, so developing expertise and
training the attorneys who train everyone else has been a priority.
Kiffmeyer said through training
counties can help themselves, and they can rely on help from other
counties. That avoids the “attorney general sucking up all this stuff
into his office,” and is cheaper, she said. (Though, Robert Small,
executive director for the County Attorneys Association, said it’s a
“resource issue for our Greater Minnesota county attorneys” and
increased AG staff would benefit them.)
So, Kiffmeyer has a hate on against Covid-controlled shutdown efforts against violators of pandemic protection measures they willingly mocked and violated.
And, her talking AG budget, last few years, readers should remember earlier in the item -
Ellison said the extra staff to help
county attorneys has been a priority since he took office. Beyond that,
he has been advocating for increases to a small budget that has less
money in 2023 than the $26.8 million the Legislature allocated in 2002.
So, Kiffmeyer can spin until dizzy, but the truth is she and her Senate Republican majority are starving the office, thereby enabling Schultz to disingenuously simplify all the truth out of the issue to say "Crime is up, on Ellison's watch, elect me."
Whether or not there is a nod and wink between Schultz and Kiffmeyer, the money tap will open if he wins, the entire picture - THE FACTS - suggest this is not how efficient and fair government would operate.
Now, if Schultz were to honestly admit Kiffmeyer's control of the pursestrings during nine billion dollar surplus days makes it infeasible for Ellison to do what he advocates; then, what's Schultz got left? Elect me, a business and finance lawyer with no administrative or trial experience, nor prior legislative office holding, because -- and that would be where his pitch would hang and die.
Also, if Schultz lacks the balls to take on Kiffmeyer now over the unfairness of the way she's handling the funding issue, how do you imagine him taking on violent criminals? Just saying -
BOTTOM LINE: If it were not for Kiffmeyer and colleagues refusing funding, Ellison would be able to be doing exactly what Schultz says should be a function of the Attorney General's office, assisting local prosecutors more, hence, if not for Kiffmeyer currently starving the office Jim Schultz would not have a single sensible thing to run on.
Schultz is an office lawyer, a paper shuffler, not a litigator. He has never run a major legal office - no administrative experience - and his background is in corporate and finance law, not criminal practice. His campaign is a sham unless he shows a willingness, presently lacking, to speak out against the current budget hamstringing of the AG office by his party cohort, Mary Kiffmeyer.
Schultz - as a new face and voice - should at least complete the BallotPedia survey so we could see who he is in light of his answering a nonpartisan survey aimed precisely at who he is.
click the image to enlarge and read it
_______UPDATE______
From earlier this year, other outlets coverage of the Ellison request for budget relief and support for the request from county attorneys: KARE 11, Duluth News Tribune, KSTP. And Ellison did enforce Covid pandemic protocols, with the death toll likely lessened. Another thing candidate Schultz dismisses by inattention; this. Ask yourself, could Schultz have done as well or better?
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