Siena Iwasaki Milbauer: Welcome back to another episode of New Narratives: Justice for George Floyd. I’m your host, Siena Iwasaki Milbauer. I use she/her pronouns and I’m the Content Creator Intern at Asian American Organizing Project also known as AAOP, a Twin Cities based nonprofit run by youth, for youth.
Election Day, which is Tuesday, November 2nd, is fast approaching, and early voting is in full swing. On the ballot this year are many important local races and ballot measures. For example, in Minneapolis and St. Paul, rent control is on the ballot. But out of all the things that will be decided November 2nd, none is receiving more attention than Minneapolis’ Ballot Measure 2. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, Minneapolis has become a nationally-recognized hub for conversations about transformative justice and how to stop the devastating cycle of police brutality ravaging our communities, especially our Black and brown communities. Ballot Measure 2 is a kind of answer. The measure would open the door to a model of public safety that doesn’t center and enable police but instead funds community-based specialized solutions to health and safety crises.
Ballot Measure 2 has landed on Minneapolis ballots thanks to thousands of Minneapolis community members who came out to sign petitions at neighborhood corners, farmers markets, and street fairs. This summer, I too walked over to my local bakery, located a 5-minute drive from the very block where police heartlessly stole George Floyd’s life from him, and signed the Ballot Measure 2 petition. The people of Minneapolis have made it clear that we want the power to decide our future. And come November 2nd, that’s exactly what we will get. I recently had the chance to talk with Jessie Lee-Bauder, Communications Manager at TakeAction Minnesota. Jessie has been very active in the campaign to make Ballot Measure 2 a reality. She spoke about the process of getting Ballot Measure 2 in front of voters, the roadblocks thrown in the ballot measure’s path, and what Ballot Measure 2 could mean for our communities if passed. Let’s dive in!
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Siena: Welcome and thank you so much for join and being apart of this episode. To start can you just introduce yourself?
Jessie Lee-Bauder: Yeah, my name is Jessie Lee Bauder. I’m half Chinese American third-generation, and I’m the Communications Manager at Take Action Minnesota. I live in Minneapolis. And so I’ve been feeling really lucky to be able to support all of our campaigns to improve our city from candidates to ballot measures. And I’ve been working on this since the early spring.
Siena: Before I ask about the broader campaign work that you’ve been doing in support of Ballot Measure 2 I I’m just curious, what has been your personal relationship to the concepts of transformative justice work as both an organizer and a storyteller.
Jessie: So living in Minneapolis last summer was a really transformative experience for me and for many people. And we’ve been talking about it and reliving it so much more over the past few weeks with body cam footage that’s been released recently. And that’s been really overwhelming and difficult. But as a storyteller, and as someone who was living here last summer, I know that there was so much more to the uprising. And so there was the indescribable grief and outrage over George Floyd’s murder. And then there was also years of trauma and police violence that had preceded May of 2020. And there was also the most incredible care and love between community members and neighbors and strangers.
For myself, I remember my friends, we were all overwhelmed and sleep deprived and really scared, but we kept taking care of each other. And we all sort of knew no one was okay. So we didn’t say, “Are you okay?” When we saw each other we would say, “Have you eaten?” And we would make sure that everyone was eating and taking care of themselves as much as they could during that time. And so as a storyteller in this role, I want to hear more of those stories. Like I don’t just want to hear about the police hunting and hurting peaceful protesters. Because we already know enough we have more than enough evidence about how violent and unaccountable and racist our police department is. I want to focus on the systems of care and solidarity that have grown in spite of that.
Siena: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I think I find that very resonant just this idea of making sure that we’re telling all of the stories that are to be told about this experience that we’re having as a community. Speaking of putting things into your own words, for folks out there who might not know about Measure 2 is or who may have only heard about it through the news or just have like a very basic understanding of what this ballot measure is about. How would you explain it in your own words?
Jessie: Ballot Measure 2 replaces the Minneapolis Police Department with a unified Department of Public Safety. And it removes minimum staffing requirements, which would then free up funding to incorporate holistic public health centered approaches to community safety, and allow us to invest in alternative, like specialized emergency responders and violence prevention, instead of just relying on armed police officers to respond to every unique situation. And it also expands oversight of the department to include the Minneapolis City Council. Right now, the Minneapolis Police Department reports only to the mayor and that means less accountability.
Siena: The work to get Ballot Measure 2 onto people’s actual ballots was really grassroots. It started with literally collecting signatures and holding community conversations. Can I ask what it was like being part of that kind of effort? And do you think that running a campaign in that way has a particular effect on the campaign itself?
Jessie: Yeah, absolutely. The experience has been so powerful. I remember going out to sign the petition, the very first day that they started collecting signatures. And there was this incredible momentum and energy there. It was February in Minnesota, so it was like two degrees out. But people were literally lining up to sign this petition. And as we continue to gather signatures, I remember thinking back to last summer, because we tried to put public safety on the ballot last year, but the charter commission blocked us from improving and expanding our public safety systems. And I remember reading all of these articles about how hard it was going to be to gather the signatures, we needed to put this on the ballot with the people’s petition. And so watching people continue to sign watching the number of signatures continue to grow is really incredible. And we ended up getting thousands more signatures than we actually needed to put this on the ballot. And that just feels really powerful and moving. And it’s also ultimately to me not very surprising, because I know that Minneapolis residents know that we need really urgent change in the way we approach public safety in the city.
Siena: Yeah, I remember going out myself to one of those signature events. And there’s something very moving about how simple it was, right? Like it’s just people standing on a neighborhood corner gathering signatures. And yet, like the change that can come from that is really transformative. There’s something very cool about that, about that combination, I think.
Jessie: Yeah, absolutely. And it also really reinforced me like how many people are in this conversation and how many people are shaping what this is going to look like moving forward and how many voices are at the table, which feels really, really powerful and important.
Siena: Absolutely. So the signatures were gathered, everything was moving forward, kind of as as one could hope. And then somehow getting the ballot measure onto the actual ballot has been a pretty challenging effort. In particular, I’m thinking about the last minute language challenges the measure faced and sort of these legal battles that came up. What was it like dealing with those challenges? And why do you think there were so many roadblocks put in the ballots path?
Jessie: I mean, it was frustrating, and honestly a little bit heartbreaking to see some elected officials in particular, our mayor, who had asked us to trust him with leadership to vote for him and who’s currently running for re-election, put more energy into overriding the will of tens of thousands of Minneapolis residents. He put more energy into that than he actually has put into addressing the systemic issues our city is facing, from violent and effective and unaccountable policing to our neighbors who are facing housing crises. And as to the why I think that, people with wealth and power privilege, like corporate landlords are very comfortable with the status quo, because it works for them. It protects their power and protects their privilege. And they have the resources to spread all of the disinformation and lies that we’ve been seeing recently, so widely, because they want to keep things the way they are, with no regard for the way the status quo is harming so many people in our city right now. But also, I ultimately think that collectively, we have the power and the momentum to make real change this fall. And I think that that really scares those powerful people. And I don’t think that they’d be trying so hard to stop this movement if we didn’t have a real chance of winning and investing in the health and well being of everyone in our city with no exceptions.
Siena: As election day approaches closer and closer. Do you have any particular message that you want to send to Minneapolis voters?
Jessie: Firstly, get out and vote by November 2. And when it comes to ballot questions, make sure you vote no on ballot question one because mean you’re stronger local democracy and we need more voices at the table, not just a few wealthy, powerful people influencing one person, the mayor. Vote yes on question two, because we need holistic approaches to public safety and we also need real accountability for the police officers that are going to remain staffed. And vote yes on question three, because we all deserve stable housing, in the neighborhoods that we love and we also know that staying rooted in our communities helps us stay safe, that’s also part of public safety.
Siena: Finally, sort of a two parter. One, what are your hopes for the future of public safety in our communities, especially as as a member of the Minneapolis community, and two, how do you think Ballot Measure 2 can help make those dreams into reality?
Jessie: When I think about the future of public safety, I hope for a future where a person in crisis is able to get their needs met appropriately, both in the moment of the crisis and also proactively. I’ve had so many interactions with neighbors who are facing houselessness, or they’re dealing with a mental health crisis, or who needs specialized support beyond just an armed police officer. I’m thinking in particular, just this week, I ran into a woman in my neighborhood, and she had just been evicted. And she kept telling me the police won’t help me. And then she told me that the police when she’d gone to them for help, had actually threatened her with hospitalization, which wasn’t what she needed. She needed support, and she needed a place to stay. And she needed help finding a place to stay, and when I started searching for shelter resources, I realized that there wasn’t a cohesive way to get her in touch with the resources she needed. I found a list of 12 or so phone numbers, which all led to shelters that were already full.
And so I imagine and I hope for and I want to keep fighting for a future of public safety where our neighbors have access to safe, stable housing, and where we have the resources, we need to support them in moments of crisis, whether that’s a mental health responder or a social worker, or a sexual violence specialist or a violence prevention specialist. I think that we need to shift our thinking to view safety as being about more than just responding after violence has already occurred. It’s about how we proactively address the situations that lead to that violence. And it’s also about how we care for and include one another and make sure we’re all safe. Ballot Measure 2 opens the door to allow us to fund those alternatives. It opens the door to allow us to really invest in mental health responders and social workers and violence prevention in a way that we just haven’t been able to do because the city charter mandates a minimum number of police officers and doesn’t really allow us to even begin to invest in all these alternatives that are really, really needed in our city right now. So I see Ballot Measure 2 as the starting point to investing in real holistic public safety in Minneapolis.
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Siena: Thanks for listening to New Narratives: Justice for George Floyd. This special series is brought to you by Asian American Organizing Project, with support from the Minneapolis Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Kofi Annan Institute for Global Citizenship at Macalester College. Featured in this episode was Jessie Lee-Bauder. Election day is November 2nd and early voting is open now! For polling location info, visit bit.ly/FindPollsMN. Let’s get out and vote, making our voices heard for the future of our communities! See you next time!