Melissa Manderschied
AGO 355a
No. 355a
Minnesota Attorney General Opinion
October 27, 2020
Public
Funds-General-City: Regardless of new technology or public
health crises, a city may not use public funds to advocate
for one side of a ballot question. Minn. Const. Art. 10
§ 1, Minn. Stat. §§ 10.60, 412.211
(Cr.
Ref. 159a-3, 442a-20)
Melissa
Manderschied
Bloomington
City Attorney
1800 W.
Old Shakopee Road
Bloomington,
MN 55431-3027
RE:
Question of Interpretation of Op. Att’y Gen. 159a-3
(May 24, 1966)
Ms.
Manderschied:
Thank
you for your correspondence, which this Office received on
October 19, 2020. You state that voters in the City of
Bloomington are being asked three ballot questions during the
November 3, 2020 General Election. You request an opinion
from this Office regarding whether city officials may use
written communication such as email and social media to
advocate for one side of a ballot question.
As
explained further below, we cannot answer your question
definitively because the answer turns on whether the City of
Bloomington is expending public funds to create, maintain,
and use its email and social media accounts, which is a
factual determination for the City. If the written
communications you describe would involve the expenditure of
public funds, we believe a Minnesota court would likely find
them to be unlawful and against public policy.
BACKGROUND
As you
note, this Office has issued several opinions related to this
subject. In 1927, we concluded that spending taxpayer money
to pay an association to campaign for one side of a proposed
constitutional amendment is “against public policy, and
illegal.” Op. Att’y Gen. 442-a-20 (July 18,
1927). We reasoned that “some of the taxpayers may feel
one way and some another,” so if a town were to spend
public money “for or against some political
proposition, some of the taxpayers will find their money
being spent without their consent, campaigning for a
proposition to which they are opposed, or vice versa.”
Id.[1]
In 1957
and 1962, we opined...
