St.Paul Chapter Legislative Report & More - John Slade
The St. Paul Legislative Breakfast was a buzz of energy and conversation this year. We had 90 people who caught part or all of it; 3 City Council members, 9 State Legislators, and enough Ramsey County Commissioners to cause possible problems with the open meeting requirements!
The focus was “Renting with a Record,” which is to say, it’s awfully hard to find an apartment if you have a criminal record, or a bad credit record, or a housing court record. Each of these systems is also rife with systemic racism, so far more black and brown people have to deal with this than they should.
When the City of St. Paul passed the SAFE tenant protections, front and center was protection for renters against these bad systems. Tenant screening regulations would have prevented looking at misdemeanors over 3 years old, felonies over 7 years old, any housing court action where the renter was not at fault or that had been resolved, and banned looking at credit records altogether. (Rental payment history, which is a far better determiner of whether a renter will pay, is still something a property owner could look at.)
Unfortunately, the big landlords sued the City and a conservative judge (Magnuson) gave them an initial legal victory – telling the City they had to stop enforcing the policy while the court case moved on. The City lawyers failed to appeal that victory, and instead recommended throwing out the entire policy (five different protections) to “work on it later.”
That happened nearly a year ago, and very little more has been done. This is one of the reasons why we wanted to focus on this issue. Who would carry SAFE 2.0 forward, and how would that look?
Another main focus was on the racism in the criminal justice system. Progressive people in law enforcement and prosecution had been pushing to reduce the penalties for past convictions, and to stop the kind of traffic stops where there is no imminent public safety concern. Yes, someone driving 90 in a 30 zone is a safety hazard; someone with one of six break lights out is not. These kinds of stops are used across the country to over-police black and brown people, and we wanted to highlight this.
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi was our panelist that talked about these stops, and how people could get records expunged. He had led his department to stop prosecuting charges that came from these kinds of stops. St. Paul City Councilmember Mitra Jalali spoke about the SAFE tenant protections, and affirmed that she would be carrying them forward. And State Representative Athena Hollins spoke about how these issues play out at the state level.
At the Council level, we have a problem – the lawsuits have spooked some of the members and there is an over-focus on what could get past their lawsuits and the conservative judge who will likely be assigned to the case. This is like negotiating from your opponent’s position as your starting point, and we need to do much better. The state legislation will move forward in the House and we will see what can get past the Senate. At Ramsey County we have a difference between the prosecutors and the folks doing the arrests. We will have to see how that plays out!
Our MICAH St. Paul Chapter 2021 Hero Award goes to…ISAIAH
MICAH’s St. Paul chapter awarded ISAIAH a Community Hero Award for their work on the Keep St. Paul Home Rent Stabilization campaign. Their driven, dedicated staff and volunteers were able to organize the majority of the voter contacts in favor of rent stabilization.