The contentious battle for Minnesota’s attorney general has resulted in several biting attacks from both Republican challenger and Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison this election season, and the two squared off for a debate on WCCO Radio on Monday, October 17.
On the issue of crime, Schultz continues to hit Ellison hard.
“The top priority for the attorney general has to be violent crime,” Schultz said. “There were over 100 murders in Minneapolis last year, 650 carjackings, crime and violence bleeding out into the suburbs.”
Schultz also hammered Ellison for his public support of a ballot referendum in Minneapolis to scrap the police department—an amendment that ultimately failed.
“It was reckless and wrong, and it was immoral,” he said. “It was immoral to propose taking away from disadvantaged communities—vulnerable communities that are consumed by crime and violence—the fundamental protections of law enforcement.”
Ellison said, when asked, he would likely not support a similar referendum again today because he feels like police and public safety changes in the city have already proven to be successful.
“We are improving the relationship between police and community,” Ellison said. “That is a good thing because it builds trust.”
Ellison also said his experience after four years in the office has proven valuable for finding other ways to stop crime, like when his office sued Merwin Liquor and Winner Gas Station in North Minneapolis for high incidents of crime in recent years.
“Prosecuting crime is important but there are other things, as well,” said Ellison. “We use civil tools to bring nuisance actions when we see there are problems properties that will not stop poor conduct—criminal conduct—on their property.”
Ellison continues to defend his office’s handling of the Kim Potter case. The former Brooklyn Center police officer was charged—and ultimately found guilty of—first-degree manslaughter for shooting and killing Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in 2021. Opponents claim she should not have been charged with a crime after Potter repeatedly claimed she grabbed her gun and fired when she thought she had grabbed her Taser.
“Kim Potter, to her credit, accepted responsibility and apologized to the family,” said Ellison. “So, I think we handled the case properly.”
Schultz said he would pardon Potter if he becomes attorney general.
“Nobody could see her testify in that case without knowing that this case, that this matter—her mistaken killing, serious mistaken killing of Daunte Wright—broke this woman,” he said.
Finally, Ellison and Schultz sparred over the state’s role in the sprawling $250 million Feeding Our Future scandal. Republicans up and down the ticket continue to criticize the Governor Tim Walz administration and other officials for how they’ve handled it—wanting to know who knew what and when.
Schultz took aim at why Ellison and others allowed the government payments to fake meal programs continue for many months.
“Keith Ellison and others have been lying about it,” he said. “First they said the judge made them do it. Then they said the FBI made them do it. Then Attorney General Ellison said he couldn’t tell the truth because of attorney-client privilege. Then he said there were no tools available to him. He could have gone after this non-profit fraud. He elected not to do so.”
Ellison, like Governor Walz, maintains they did what they did because the federal government asked them to.
“If you did what Jim said, you start to do things to tip off the federal investigation, phones get wiped, computers get wiped, documents disappear, people start absconding to different countries as other people did.
What we did is we cooperated and we did not talk about the federal investigation.”
WCCO's Behind the Ballot series is presented by Minnesota's Credit Unions.
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