Because of the exigencies of the biennial budgeting business, lawmakers at the Minnesota Capitol did nothing in 2023 to curb the effects of this disturbing September 2022 Minnesota Supreme Court opinion. We plan to push hard for a legislative fix next year.

The suit, Energy Policy Advocates v. Ellison, was brought by a conservative group trying to glean information about some controversial, externally funded hires inside the AG Keith Ellison’s office. The group lost, in a ruling labeled “Orwellian” by its lead dissenter, Supreme Court Associate Justice Paul Thissen.

We agree with his assessment. It appears to broaden the definition of “individual” in the Minnesota Data Practices Act (DPA) to encompass the AG’s entire office.

That’s important because the law specifies that most information produced by state agencies is public. But the DPA carves out protections for information that reveals private details about individuals—driver’s license numbers, home addresses, medical conditions and the like—designating that data as private, or, in the statute’s parlance, “non-public.”

The Supreme Court decision now extends those individual privacy protections to the whole of the state’s top law enforcement agency.

“Why would the Legislature have used the word ‘individuals’ if it meant for [DPA] Section 13.65 to cover data that was not on individuals?” Justice Thissen wrote in his dissent. “Only a lawyer could take delight in pondering that question and reaching the result the court reaches today; other Minnesotans will be scratching their heads.”

They will also be rightly concerned about the ruling’s impact: The AG can now refuse public data requests under the theory that they involve protected information about an ”individual,” not a government entity that is required to disclose public data.

We agree with Justice Thissen that, as a logical leap, the court bounded a bridge too far. Corrective legislation is urgently needed and Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, proposed such a fix as an omnibus bill amendment late last session. For strategic reasons, it was withdrawn, but we will push hard to revive the effort in 2024.

We have detected a movement among some of Minnesota’s elected bodies—school boards, county boards, and city councils—to halt the broadcasting of public comment periods held during their open meetings. In these situations, government entities selectively broadcast only a portion of their meetings, while those segments reserved for public comment are excluded from broadcast. 

We don’t think that’s good enough for a functioning democracy. No matter where a member of the public views a meeting from—in the city council chambers, or on a home laptop—everyone should be able to see the same meeting content. If a public body chooses to broadcast its open meetings, then it should broadcast the entire meeting—including any public comment period that is included.

Currently, broadcasting open meetings is discretionary, unless pandemic-era meeting rules are in effect. In 2023, we proposed legislation that would require elected bodies to broadcast their open meetings in non-pandemic situations, too. The proposal would also require that public comments periods—if held—be held during open meetings, so that they could be broadcast along with all other meeting content. MNCOGI got substantial public support from editorial boards at the Star Tribune and other newspapers for that stance.

Our efforts didn’t get anywhere in 2023. As is common during budgeting years, measures like this often get delayed until the following year’s “policy” session. It is our intention to vigorously pursue this matter in 2024.

MNCOGI is suing the city of Minneapolis and various city officials to wrest free information about their “coaching” of Minneapolis police officers for policy violations.

The issue was brought violently to the fore by the murder of George Floyd. After that traumatic event, the public learned that ex-Officer Derek Chauvin had previously used the same knee-on-neck technique and that more than 20 complaints had been filed against him over the course of his Minneapolis police career. But little was known—or is known—about the substance of complaints.

Under Minnesota’s Data Practices Act, the results of an investigation of complaints or charges against public employees only become public if the employee is disciplined and the discipline becomes final. If an employee is not disciplined, the public never gets to see the details of the matter and can only learn that a complaint or charge was made against the employee and how that complaint or charge was resolved.  

In MNCOGI v. City of Minneapolis, et. al., we argue that the City of Minneapolis has failed to produce public records relating to the use of “coaching” as a police disciplinary action. Documented coaching of policy violations is indistinguishable from written warnings, which Civil Service Commission Rules identify as a form of police discipline. We contend the city should not be allowed to use semantics to shroud officer misconduct.

The suit is ongoing. Most recently, the judge in the case ordered the discovery process to proceed. That has generated some important answers from the city to our questions but others remain unanswered and the case continues. Stay tuned.

In 2023, MNCOGI was at the center of legislative negotiations over how transparently the new agency that regulates how legal marijuana will operate.

For instance, as originally drafted, the legalization bill contained broad carve-outs for all closed investigative data related to past marijuana prosecutions. Also as initially proposed, it would have treated marijuana regulation and licensing more privately and secretively than has been the case for liquor-license holders.

With big help from unpaid citizen lobbyist Rich Neumeister and groups like the Minnesota Newspaper Association and the Minnesota Broadcasters Association, MNCOGI successfully helped steer the legislation toward accountability and preserving the public’s right to know.