ST. PAUL, Minn. (CN) - The Minnesota Supreme Court will decide if a city council is allowed to call a special election after the outgoing mayor controversially appointed a new councilmember to fill a vacant seat.
The question stems from a lawsuit by former Mayor Dennis Walsh against Orono, the city he once led. Walsh argues that the city council improperly called a special election for a seat he already filled.
Walsh's lawyer, Nicholas Nelson of the Upper Midwest Law Center, told justices in oral arguments Tuesday that the way the city council went about the special election was deeply problematic.
"Orono waited until after a vacancy arose, after the vacancy was filled by appointment, and only then got around to reportedly deciding what to do about a special election," Nelson told the court.
Walsh says the council enacted an ordinance for the election after he named Claire Berrett to take former Council Member Matt Johnson's seat shortly after he resigned in November 2024, leaving two years in his term.
Berrett's appointment caused a ruckus in Orono, a city of fewer than 9,000 people about 18 miles west of Minneapolis. Her quick appointment and swearing-in involved officials and audience members shouting over each other and booing.
Chief Justice Natalie Hudson said that cities across the state have enacted similar ordinances.
Nelson told the justices he doesn't dispute the council's right to call a special election, but he said the members have to provide advance notice per state statute.
Hudson seemed unconvinced.
"I think one reading of (the statute) could be simply that if a city wants to hold a special election at a different time than the regular city election, then they have to say when that will be and what the circumstances of that will be," Hudson said in court.
That gets to Walsh's circular argument, David Zoll, of Lockridge Grindal, who represents Orono, told justices Tuesday.
The ordinance does not undo Johnson's resignation and it does not seek to undo Berrett's appointment, according to Zoll.
"What it does is it specifies the time or the circumstances and the process by which the city council will hold the forthcoming required statutory special election," he told the court.
However, Associate Justice Paul Thissen said the ordinance shortens Berrett's term, something state statute prohibits.
Under normal circumstances, Berrett's term would end during the city's next general election in November 2026.
"There's background law that says you can't do that unless the Legislature specifically gives the city that power, and the cities don't have any power unless the Legislature gives it to them," Thissen said.
Zoll disagreed, saying the special election does not shorten Berrett's term as defined when she was appointed, which is set in statute.
Thissen replied that since there was no ordinance when Berrett was appointed, her term would last until the next regularly scheduled election.
But the city argues that state statute says an appointee serves until the qualification of their successor chosen at a special election, Zoll told the court. Therefore, the ordinance does not apply retroactively because there has yet to be a special election.
The February ordinance calls for a May 13 special election, meaning the state Supreme Court must rule within a week.
The court seems unlikely to make a far-reaching rule about cities enacting similar laws and more likely to rule on whether Orono's ordinance was applied unfairly to Berrett.
"We are not opposed to ordinances calling for early special elections. We're just opposed to putting them in place after the vacancy has been filled," Nelson told the court.
Source: Courthouse News Service
