DFL leaders, ACLU vow to step in after Mille Lacs County judge challenges felon vote law

Updated: 5:34 p.m.

Minnesota DFL leaders and the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota say they will step in to block efforts to limit the voting rights of people convicted of a felony who are no longer incarcerated.

The comments and expected legal action come after Mille Lacs County District Court Judge Matthew Quinn last week sentenced two people convicted on felony charges to probation with a condition prohibiting them from voting, registering to vote or attempting to vote until they’d fully served out their sentences.

That contradicts a state law passed by the Legislature earlier this year. And ACLU attorneys on Wednesday said the move is “judicially unprecedented.”

An attorney for one of the defendants says he plans to appeal on multiple grounds. Attorneys from the ACLU said they were prepared to support both defendants in their appeals and they would also consider other legal options to prevent Quinn from issuing similar sentences.

“We're concerned because this appears to be — in our view — setting up a pattern,” David McKinney, staff attorney with ACLU of Minnesota, told MPR News. “We disagree with the substance of it, and the legal analysis on it, but it appears to be just a sort of ready-made attachment to orders going forward. And he's already done it in two and we have no reason to suspect that he’s not going to do it in other cases.”

McKinney said the move could abridge voting rights for others in the county and create a chilling effect for some who recently had their right to vote restored.

Secretary of State Steve Simon and Attorney General Keith Ellison have also raised concerns about the orders.

“We believe the judge’s orders are not lawful and we will oppose them,” Simon and Ellison said in a joint statement on Tuesday. “The orders have no statewide impact, and should not create fear, uncertainty, or doubt. In Minnesota, if you are over 18, a U.S. citizen, a resident of Minnesota for at least 20 days, and not currently incarcerated, you are eligible to vote. Period.”

Quinn in his 15-page orders wrote that the Minnesota law that took effect in June, granting those convicted of a felony restoration of their right to vote after they complete their prison sentence, is unconstitutional. He wrote that Minnesota courts are subservient to the U.S. and state constitutions and not “to an act of the Legislature — let alone an unconstitutional act.”

“The Legislature would now be empowered to state the fact that a statute does not violate the Minnesota Constitution within the language of the statute itself,” Quinn wrote. “Put another way, the Legislature, and not the judiciary, defines the net effect of a statute. The Legislature would, in a sense, be free to circumvent provisions of the Minnesota Constitution by simply stating that x equals y.”

Quinn didn’t respond to calls from MPR News on Wednesday.

Ellison and Simon in their statement said that the orders in Mille Lacs County don’t apply to others.

“Last week’s orders, issued by one judge in one of Minnesota’s 87 counties, fly in the face of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year that deferred the decision on voting rights to the Legislature,” they said. “We encourage all who are eligible to register and vote.”

They are expected to announce next steps this week on how they will challenge the rulings.

Conservative groups have also challenged the law in court, taking issue with the way it was enacted.

DFL lawmakers at the Capitol for years have pushed to get the policy change over the finish line. And they were able to do so this year after winning control over both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s office. The Minnesota Supreme Court earlier this year also paved the way for the change, they said, after determining that the Legislature has the authority to change the law around felon enfranchisement.

Jason Marisam is an assistant professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and previously worked in the Minnesota attorney general’s office. He said the move to challenge the law as part of a sentencing order is “highly unusual, and seems to break against judicial norms of how these matters would normally be handled.”

Typically, a person who takes issue with a law gives notice to the state and other parties that they plan to challenge it if they think it is unconstitutional. But that didn’t happen here, he said.

“If you’re a judge, and you see a new law come down, and you think that law is unconstitutional, it is not your job to just go issue an order saying that,” Marisam said. 

“To declare a state law unconstitutional, when it hasn’t been brought to you, and to do it in such a way that you are preventing the normal parties that would be charged with defending the constitutionality of law, like the attorney general, from weighing in — it is problematic and does raise questions about the motivation and sort of fairness of the judge,” he continued.

The law change in Minnesota is estimated to affect more than 55,000 people still serving some stage of a sentence outside a jail or prison wall. And voting rights groups have spent months raising awareness about the policy and encouraging Minnesotans to register to vote once they become eligible.

Quinn was first appointed to the 7th Judicial District by then-Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, in 2017. He was elected to continue serving in 2018; his term expires in January 2025. The Minnesota Board of Judicial Standards in 2021 reprimanded Quinn over social media posts and an appearance he made in a boat parade supporting former President Donald Trump.

• FBI Director Wray to resign at end of Biden administration
• DFL, Republican senators weigh in on state budget forecast
• Mayor Jacob Frey vetoes 2025 budget approved by Minneapolis City Council
• Trump's withdrawn nominees latest in a long line of Cabinet members who never were