Why Frey, Carter shrugged at councils’ recent overridden vetoes

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter have both made headlines this month for basically saying they would ignore city council override votes of their vetoes.

That turned some heads and certainly angered some city council members, but both mayors insist they would have legal grounding for choosing not to implement policy as instructed by their city councils. 

Both cases are very different from each other. In St. Paul, Carter is looking at a ballot referendum involving taxes to support child care, while in Minneapolis, Frey was reacting to new carbon emissions fees.

In both cases, though, the two mayors have appeared to say something rare: That they simply would not implement what’s been put in front of them. Meanwhile, the details of each case show how a mayor’s power is tested in Minneapolis and St. Paul’s unique “strong mayor” systems because, ultimately, these mayors head the city departments that would need to implement what their councils want done. 

The case in St. Paul

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter wants St. Paul voters to look closely at the ballot language of a referendum proposing a citywide early child care tax before them in this November general election. He says it’s misleading. 

The ballot language states “shall the City of Saint Paul be authorized to levy property taxes in the amount of…” It goes on to outline a schedule ramping up the levy to a total of $20 million per year. This would amount to a total of $110 million over a decade. 

But Carter wants voters to note the word “authorized.” If passed, Carter argues, the initiative would simply give him the power to implement the outlined tax — if he chooses to do so. And the mayor is saying he will choose not to do so regardless of the referendum’s outcome. 

“Possessing the authorization would be honoring the will of the voters. … Authorizing a thing and directing a thing to be done are two different things,” he said in an interview with MinnPost.  

The money levied is meant to “create a dedicated fund for children’s early care and education to be administered by a City department or office that provides subsidies to families and providers so that early care and education is no cost to low-income families and available on a sliding scale to other families, and so as to increase the number of child care slots and support the child care workforce.”

Carter says even if voters approve the measure and the city moves forward with it, the measure would overpromise and underdeliver, because the amount of money raised by the levy wouldn’t be enough to cover everything. That makes it misleading, he said. 

“It would be like if you ordered a pizza and the delivery driver brought you two slices even though you paid for the whole pizza,” Carter said.

Carter pointed to a 2017 report the referendum was originally based on, which concluded that it would cost $39 million to close the child care gap in St. Paul for low-income infants and toddlers under 2 years old. The ballot question doubles the number of children and adds policy promises for children ages 2-4. But  the property tax proposed collects a maximum of $20 million per year.

“My assertion would be that in order to make a difference, in order to justify a set of policy investments in this ballot question, you would have to fully deliver on the promises that it makes, and if you’re going to partially deliver the promises and still expect to charge taxpayers the full amount of money, that would require a new conversation,” he said. 

The St. Paul City Council originally passed the referendum in August of 2023. Current council president Mitra Jalali and former council member Russel Balenger, voted against it. Carter vetoed the measure last year, but his veto was ultimately overruled. 

Carter has remained in staunch opposition to the implementation of this tax. In a letter to the St. Paul City Council this month, Carter stated, “as I have communicated over the past year, my administration must respectfully decline to propose, plan, staff, and/or implement programming pursuant to the outcome of this referendum.”

“Some advocates, I think to avoid a detailed level of discussion, just want to say, ‘Oh, the mayor just isn’t going to accept the will of the voters,’ is inaccurate,” Carter said.  

Council member Rebecca Noecker, one of the proposal’s sponsors, was not available for comment for this story. But she told Axios last week that voters “completely understand that this is like every other public program in existence,” Noecker said. “It’s not going to have funding to cover every single child who’s eligible.”

Carter does not believe voters will understand this.

Noecker also contended that a supermajority of council members could overrule the mayor on this topic. 

To this Carter asked: “Overrule what?” Because the mayor said he is not actually saying no to something. Rather, if the referendum is passed, he said he’s choosing to simply not to use power he could be granted.

The case in Minneapolis 

There’s a difference between a mayor and city staff saying they won’t do something and a mayor saying they can’t do something. In Minneapolis’ case, it was a situation where Frey said his staff couldn’t implement a council-passed ordinance on carbon emissions fees legally. Therefore, Frey said the city just wouldn’t do it on the council’s desired timeline unless amendments were made, explained mayor’s office spokesperson Ally Peters.

“We’re not in the business of implementing illegal fees,” she said.  

Of the council’s original ordinance to address carbon emission fees, Frey said: “As City staff have repeatedly said, all of this cannot happen by January 31. Therefore, the City cannot legally implement a fee by January 31, and will not do so, even if the Council overrides the mayor’s veto on Thursday.”

Before the fees can be implemented legally, Frey’s office said a new program must be created, businesses and stakeholders consulted, positions for the program posted and staff hired. The mayor also said city attorneys have been clear such a fee needs an accompanying ordinance requiring registration or an established regulatory program.

Last week, the council overroad the mayor’s veto. But it was an amended version — modified in a way Frey’s office said would make it possible for the city to legally implement. Specifically, they extended the fee’s implementation time from Jan. 31 to July 1. The council also brought forward an ordinance to establish a funds system within the city’s health department.  

“It’s still very quick. It’s still going to be a large task, but that hopefully helps with some of those legality and just holistic issues that we were running into here,” Peters said. “Yes, even if the City Council had kept their ordinance the same, kept that Jan. 31, the city was not going to start charging companies fees on Jan. 31 without a program set up, no matter what they did.”

The fee will charge businesses $452 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent. Last year, the Minneapolis City Council passed a climate plan that looks to reduce the city’s emissions by 75% by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050. 

Are the mayors right? Or are there legal implications here?

In these cases, it’s important to note that the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul have significantly more power than the average mayor of a small city would, said League of Minnesota Cities research manager Amber Eisenschenk. 

But in general, especially in small cities, Eisenschenk said the League of Minnesota Cities always tells cities “don’t have ordinances that you can’t enforce or implement,” because it can lead to legal problems. 

“Usually, we’re talking about that coming in through the litigation process of someone creating a lawsuit for the city to act in the way that it says it’s going to act,” she said. “But if the council were trying to implement an ordinance that the mayor has gotten legal advice that says this is an illegal ordinance, I certainly think that most mayors in that situation are going to say, ‘No, I’m not going to implement that.’” 

Minneapolis and St. Paul are both charter cities with strong mayors. This adds complexity when it comes to the legal role of councils and mayors, Eisenschenk said. Charter cities essentially have their own constitution, while non-charter cities (otherwise known as statutory cities) operate within state law. 

“I think we’re looking at two really large cities with lots of needs, with a lot of really passionate people running these organizations who have great ideas for improving the quality of life of their community,” she said. “Sometimes progress is a little slower than what we want, than what our residents want.” 

The post Why Frey, Carter shrugged at councils’ recent overridden vetoes appeared first on MinnPost.