Gazelka: Dems asked for too much, too late on police reform

It’s not yet clear when state lawmakers will be back at work again in St. Paul. They adjourned their special session this weekend without agreeing on several big agenda items — from police accountability, to distributing coronavirus aid to local governments.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer talked with Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake, about those negotiations and what comes next.

This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.

When the Senate adjourned late Friday, you said it was time to take ‘a breather.’ Earlier Friday evening when I talked to the governor, he said the talks were pretty positive. What happened?

We were working on police accountability as one of the big things that needed to get done and we got a massive request to make a lot of changes, that we were nowhere near, somewhere around midnight of that night. It might've been a little bit earlier than that, but right around there, and so we weren't going to be able to get that done because there was a number of reforms that the Democrats wanted that we just were not going to do. And I was not aware, but the governor had publicly said that he would not support spending money for local governments across the state if we didn't have that. So then behind the scenes, he worked to disrupt an agreement that I had with the speaker to pass that, and so once I saw the way things were working, that there was not actually working together but to pull us apart, I said it is time to adjourn and we'll come back to a normal special session where you agree on what you're going to do ahead of time, the contract, the language, and then you come in for one day and pass it.

Can I go back to the police accountability for just a moment. The Senate approved a set of modest changes — I think 11 on a list of some 20 items presented by the People of Color and Indigenous Caucus — so there appears to be some proposed changes that Republicans and Democrats agree on. What sticking points, what issues were you not willing to go for when it came to police accountability?

First of all, they weren't modest. In any press conference I heard from the governor, or the commissioner of public safety, they listed chokeholds and we banned chokeholds. They wanted police officers, if they saw another police officer doing something wrong, to stop them. We agreed with that. Sanctity of life — which means if at all possible, don't use deadly force — we agreed with that. POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training) Board reforms, we added two more citizens on that board. So one situation after the other we agreed with, and then we included arbitration changes, which meant if there was a police shooting and the arbitration didn't work, you could actually bring it to an administrative law judge. These were significant reforms that they didn't agree with.

We did set out that we would not do anything related to defunding the police or dismantling the police. City of Minneapolis wanted to defund the police. The Democrats of the House wanted to do alternatives to policing. We didn't approve of dismantling the police, nor felon voting, which in the end, they took that one off. They just added too much at the end, and there was no way we were going to get done, even in weeks, with the things that they wanted to still do.

What kinds of deals were being worked out prior to that special session? I mean, you all keep working even when you're not in session, you know? So what was going on prior to meeting again in St. Paul that you thought you had a deal on before you actually got into session?

We did have an agreement in the House and Senate to spend $841 million of federal stimulus money for all of our local communities across the state. That was supposed to be clean, in other words, nothing else added to it. You know, that's where I'll make sure that next time, moving forward, we actually have a signature on some of these things. And then at the end, we also had agreement to spend $58 million on a bunch of different deficiencies that the governor had asked for, that was agreed upon as well. That would have been a separate bill. And we were close on the bonding bill. We're actually still working on that. The leader of the House and the leader of the Senate continue to work to get to that number because we do expect a special session coming up. But I just think it'll either be the end of June, or at the latest July 12, if the governor keeps his emergency powers for something that is not an emergency anymore.

Will you fight that?

Absolutely. July 12, if he brings us back, it's because emergency powers have ended and we will vote again to remove those. There is no emergency. COVID-19 is serious, but it was not what we thought it was going to be. The governor predicted 40,000 deaths if we sheltered in place. That was his first prediction. Well, now we're nowhere near 2,000 deaths, and so that that'll be something we say it's time to end those powers. Last time, three Democrats voted with us to remove them. The House had one. I think you'll have a growing number of people that say it's more important that the legislative branch is on equal footing with the governor than the governor making all the decisions.

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