Agenda - Charter Commission - 10/26/2022

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410.21 APPLICATION OF GENERAL ELECTION LAWS. The provisions of any charter of any such city adopted pursuant to this chapter shall be valid and shall control as to nominations, primary elections, and elections for municipal offices, notwithstanding that such charter provisions may be inconsistent with any general law relating thereto, and such general laws shall apply only in so far as consistent with such charter. The apparent conflict between these provisions would be resolved under the interpretive provisions of Chapter 645 of Minnesota Statutes, which states, as a general rule, more specific statutes prevail over general ones. Since Chapter 410 deals only with charter cities and the other statutes deal with all "municipalities", the usual rules of statutory construction would mean that the provisions of Minn.Stat.§410.21, above, unless specifically superseded elsewhere, would prevail. Moreover, Minn.Stat.§410.21 expressly states that its provision prevail over any general laws (including those related to elections). The provisions of Minn.Stat.§410.21 essentially stand the usual presumption of state law always superseding municipal law, including for charter cities, on its head. In the usual case, the state law and charter provisions are interpreted, to the extent possible, harmoniously, with state law prevailing in cases where the provisions are irreconcilable. Under the provisions of this statute, on matters related to nominations, primary elections and elections for municipal offices, the provisions would again be interpreted, to the extent possible, harmoniously. The important difference is that on these specific matters, the charter language would prevail in cases where provisions might be irreconcilable. The key takeaway from this analysis is that while it may be a matter of good policy to have the city and state election regulations as consistent with each other as possible, State law does not compel the city to make changes to its charter where inconsistencies related to municipal elections, including primaries, are believed to exist. The record indicated that the concerns raised by the City Council members in not adopting the earlier proposed language changes related to timing of primaries and the length of council appointments to vacancies. These matters are all fully within the City's discretion to determine under its charter and there is no requirement that those provisions be changed because they do not appear to be consistent with state law. Conversely, of course, the City is free to do so if it chooses. F.K. 2