by Steve Timmer

Aug 26, 2025, 1:30 PM

The state DFL spits, part two

Writing in the Star Tribune, Strib columnist Rochelle Olson wrote this about the recent convention that endorsed Omar Fateh and the state DFL’s decision to strip him of it:

All Democrats should seek to be a beacon of unimpeachable democracy, even when it’s difficult, and that’s what the state party has done.

This isn’t about personalities or factional control of the DFL; it’s about process and the integrity in the state’s largest city.

The callow Olson has apparently never attended a political convention. And just incidentally, most of the things Olson complains about, the state DFL’s CBRC — the star chamber — did not even cite as rules violations in its decision to strip Fateh of the endorsement. Olson doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

I wrote about this a few days ago; I commend it, as it has points I won’t repeat here. The decision of the CBRC is linked in the earlier piece.

The state DFL spits on the Minneapolis DFL

The first draft of the hed was one letter different.

Please read the earlier linked story for a more plenary recitation of them; this is a bare bones statement of the facts.

The computer counting system relied on by the convention, and run by volunteers as always (and which the CBRC did not find harbored nefarious intent), made a hash of it on the first ballot. The illness, mid-convention, of the head teller didn’t help.

When the first ballot was tallied, a point of order was made about a substantial undercount, and the presiding officer entertained a motion to throw out the first ballot, a motion made undoubtedly by a Frey delegate who was hoping to run out the clock; ‘no endorsement’ was the best the Frey campaign could possibly do, and the time remaining in the convention was running short.

Standard convention stuff.

But the convention delegates, aware of the undercount — in a decision the CBRC does not criticize — did not vote to throw the vote out on the point of order, in effect accepting it and moving on to the second ballot.

Anyone who has attended a political convention knows that rules can be amended or suspended by the delegates in a convention, and the delegates vote on points of order, too. Really, it happens often, especially when there are canny convention operators afoot, like some of the members of the CBRC.

I submit that the vote on the point of order ended the issue of the first ballot. It was a small ‘d’ democratic decision, that was made by delegates who were chosen in small ‘d’ democratic caucuses, that ought not to have been upset post hoc by a star chamber CBRC.

There’s your democracy, Rochelle.

Without the conclusion that the delegates were not authorized to vote against the point of order, that the act was ultra vires, the CBRC is powerless to declare the second, endorsing vote for Fateh invalid. It did not so conclude. The CBRC didn’t quarrel with the manner of the second ballot vote, either. You can read the decision.

People go to precinct caucuses and conventions to have their voices heard, to adopt policy resolutions, and to endorse candidates. Except for the minority of Frey delegates, that was certainly true of the Minneapolis convention.

Nobody was endorsed on the flawed first vote. It was obvious that it was likely that the convention would only get one more vote, and it was also obvious that it wasn’t going to endorse DeWayne Davis, who isn’t complaining, anyway. (The percentage of the vote received by Davis in the flawed vote count and the one offered by the Frey sleuths to the CRBC differed by a fraction of a percent.) If I lived in Minneapolis, which I don’t, I’d rank DeWayne just for that act of realism.

Most of Olson’s column is not about the convention but rather a cranky complaint about Fateh generally. One of the things I like about Rochelle is that she wears her animus on her sleeve; it’s very transparent.