Debate About Who Pays The Freight Divides An Already Polarized State

By Ricardo Lopez, Minnesota Reformer

March 3, 2021

When Senate Republicans recently accused Minneapolis of seeking a “bailout” to fund law enforcement during the Derek Chauvin trial, Democratic Sen. Patricia Torres Ray turned the tables with a sharp rebuttal: “We have a tax base that supports rural Minnesota because your communities are declining. You do not have a tax base as big as mine.”

Torres Ray is correct. Minneapolis tax payers send more than 3.5 times as much money to the state as they receive in aid, according to a Minneapolis Regional Chamber report published last week.

Additionally, the nonpartisan Minnesota House Research Department has found that the seven-county metro region produces far more in tax revenue than it takes in. More than 54% of Minnesotans live in the metro region, with 53.9% of state aids and credits going to this population. But when it comes to income tax, for instance, metro residents pay $2,594 per capita, while nonmetro residents pay an average of $960.

But fighting over who gives more than they get scores political points for members of both parties as the rural-urban divide increasingly becomes a partisan one and concerns over policing and crime have reached the top of voters’ minds.

Republicans say they are fighting for their constituents and their values in rural communities by blocking bills to aid Minneapolis in rebuilding from last year’s civil unrest and preparing for the high-profile trial of Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd in May.

Senate Republicans answered a proposal from DFL Gov. Tim Walz to create a $35 million fund to pay for mutual aid around the state with their own proposal that would cut local government aid to Minneapolis. The money would be used to pay for the additional law enforcement presence to prevent a recurrence of the rioting and arson from last year.

It was debate over that bill that led Torres Ray to offer her unvarnished assessment of her city’s outsized role in the state’s economy. But it didn’t go unchecked.

State Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, hit back. “Minneapolis is large,” she acknowledged, but added: “It is rural Minnesota that feeds the state of Minnesota — their farming, their grains, their husbandry.”

Republicans also posted a clip of Torres Ray’s comments to Facebook with a caption reading: “Democrats express how they really feel about rural Minnesota.”

Republicans also

Republicans, whose power center — following national political trends — has shifted in recent years from the suburbs to rural Minnesota, have also been known to denigrate urban dwellers. Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, once told a televangelist that “rural people like to take care of themselves.” Whereas, he said, “In the inner city, it’s definitely — there’s higher concentrations of people that are on welfare, that are used to that, and our welfare system has basically entrapped them.”

The bitter dispute over who gives more than they get has frustrated some members of both parties.

State Rep. Paul Marquart, DFL-Dilworth, is one of the few remaining Democratic-Farmer-Labor lawmakers representing a rural district. As House Taxes Committee chairman, Marquart is also intimately familiar with the imbalance of tax revenue distribution in Minnesota.

He said rural legislators should be fierce advocates for their districts, but he cautions against stoking the rural-urban divide. “It becomes divisive and counterproductive when legislation is proposed that hurts the metro area or vilifies a specific city like Minneapolis,” he said.

State Rep. Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, said in an interview that while on the whole, a tax analysis shows Minneapolis paying more than it receives, the calculation is too simplistic.

“I don’t think we can divide the economy neatly based on geography because it’s all interrelated,” he said.

House Research data shows that rural Minnesota pays a larger share of certain taxes, namely motor fuels and motor vehicle registration taxes.

Torkelson, a farmer and seven-term lawmaker, said the continuing rhetoric pitting rural and urban Minnesota makes debates unnecessarily controversial.

House Republicans, including Torkelson, largely object to Senate Republicans’ proposal, sponsored by Sen. Bill Weber, R-Luverne, to cut local aid to Minneapolis. They voiced their support for a state fund proposed by Walz, although voted against a DFL bill because it required law enforcement agencies to adopt new policies on policing large assemblies.

Minneapolis also found an ally in the debate when the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities publicly stated their opposition to Weber’s bill.

The group raised concerns about how such legislation could harm rural communities in the future, given their reliance on state aid.

“Just as extraordinary public safety events can happen in Minneapolis, so too can they occur in Mankato, Marshall or Mahnomen,” Little Falls Mayor Greg Zylka and president of the coalition wrote to Senate Republicans. “CGMC opposes in all circumstances the use of (Local Government Aid) as a penalty or tool to enforce the policy preferences of the Legislature.”

In an interview, Bradley Peterson, executive director of the CGMC, said that althought it’s true that the metro generates most of the state’s tax base, the state’s rural and urban economies are highly interdependent.

“Greater Minnesota contributes quite a bit to the economy and wellbeing and culture of the state of Minnesota,” he said. “Before you even get to the fact that it is 40% of the population in and of itself, Greater Minnesota is making significant contributions to the state as well.”

Walz, the former congressman from Minnesota’s 1st District, ran for governor on the campaign slogan of “One Minnesota,” seeking to bridge the gap between rural and urban communities.

As he pitched his $35 million law enforcement public safety fund to lawmakers early last month, he said he lamented GOP attacks, saying he detected a theme in their rhetoric.

“This is the cancer in our country,” he said, vociferously rejecting efforts to divide Minnesotans. “It’s what motivated my One Minnesota.”

Walz also pointed out that the state incurred millions of dollars in security costs to keep the Minnesota Capitol safe in January when demonstrators gathered for a “Storm the Capitol” rally the same day insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol.

“I didn’t send a bill to the rural legislators who were at the rally on Jan. 6 that cost millions of dollars,” he said.

Gazelka the next day pushed back on Walz’s remarks calling divisive rhetoric “a cancer” and criticizing Walz’s words as, well, divisive.

With a little over two months left in the legislative session, and the Chauvin trial set to start in a matter of days, it’s unclear whether lawmakers will reach agreement on aid to rebuild parts of Minneapolis and St. Paul that were destroyed during the riots. Or whether Minneapolis taxpayers will be left paying the bill for security costs for the trial.

Minneapolis leaders have been closely monitoring the Capitol discussion, with at least one expressing concern about their image and how it could affect their prospects at the Legislature..

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stood up for his city and their role in the state.

“It’s not just us that’s presently dependent on the rest of the state. The rest of the state is dependent on Minneapolis,” Frey said during a recent news conference. “The state of Minnesota is an ecosystem and that ecosystem is certainly dependent on its largest city.”

Council member Lisa Goodman, however, recently expressed concern about how the city has been perceived at the Capitol.

“We’re being hammered at the Legislature,” Goodman said recently. “We look like fools to some of them. Maybe everyone doesn’t care (that) we look like fools to people no one cares about, but to me, looking foolish at the Legislature is not good.”

The Minnesota Reformer is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to keeping Minnesotans informed and unearthing stories other outlets can’t or won’t tell..