Pressure renews for Minnesota city councils to call for a cease-fire

CATHY WURZER: Saint Paul City Council has yet to formally debate a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas War. Council member Nelsie Yang tried to bring a resolution up at last night's meeting, just as council president Mitra Jalali adjourned.

MITRA JALALI: All right. That brings us to the end of our agenda today. We thank visitors who came back to our chambers. I will personally chat with any constituents who want to connect with me. And with that, we are adjourned.

NELSIE YANG: President Jalali, I have-- I have an item to put on-- to--

MITRA JALALI: We just-- I'm sorry. We just adjourned, Ms. Yang. I'm happy to talk to you about it, though, after this.

NELSIE YANG: No. I think that's-- that's really unacceptable.

MITRA JALALI: Ms. Yang, we-- we actually are adjourned. I'm sorry.

NELSIE YANG: That's really unacceptable.

CATHY WURZER: People had filled the chambers in support of a resolution, and they protested the move to adjourn, as you heard. Yang also took issue with it calling it "undemocratic," but a spokesperson for Jalali said, she was following normal procedure. She also said she signed on to a letter, from public officials, asking the White House to call for a ceasefire.

This is all happening, of course, in a larger context as constituents demand their local leaders take a stance on what is happening in Gaza. Across the river in Minneapolis, the city council earlier this month overrode a veto by Mayor Jacob Frey to pass their own ceasefire resolution.

Joining us right now to talk about this mix of local and global politics is University of Minnesota political expert Larry Jacobs.

Welcome back.

LARRY JACOBS: Good to be with you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Well, professor, all politics is said to be local, so why are city councils and other municipal forms of government being asked to weigh in on a situation a world away?

LARRY JACOBS: Well, I think you look around the country and certainly in Minnesota, you see very progressive groups taking control of city government, in particular. And the issue about Gaza and Israel's conduct of the war there has drawn the ire of many Democrats, especially the progressive wing and Arab-Americans. We saw that in Michigan earlier this week, and we are going to see it, for sure, in Minnesota on primary night on Tuesday.

This is just another expression of that. In the city council, the progressive wing has increased its power in Minneapolis, and we're seeing it force the issue. Saint Paul, it's different politics, different set of political traditions, and the city council is saying they want to focus on local issues, with streets and parks and police and fire being at the top of that list.

CATHY WURZER: We should say, though, that other city councils, in Hastings, also has passed a resolution. Some of these councils-- Minneapolis, Saint Paul-- have passed resolutions in the past on the Ukraine-Russia War, the Iraq War, apartheid in South Africa. Why is what is happening between Israel and Hamas such a flashpoint?

LARRY JACOBS: In Saint Paul, it's like elsewhere, very divisive. And the Saint Paul tradition has been to try to build some kind of consensus or broad agreement, and that's not the case on this. And we've heard city council members say, on this issue, they're getting very strong reactions, both from those pushing for the resolution for a permanent ceasefire and those who oppose it, and so they're leery of getting involved.

They don't want to get distracted. They want to focus on these local issues. They say many of the protesters are not even from the city. They're from out of the city, and they're not going to be bullied.

CATHY WURZER: I wonder, you know, most voters care about really one or two key issues, and I would presume local elected officials can't risk alienating them because personal relationships are key to getting work done, right? What of that?

LARRY JACOBS: Yeah. And that's the part of the tradition in Saint Paul. That's less evident in Minneapolis. In Saint Paul for many, many years, there's been a tradition of trying to bring together the community. And the city council, even though many of the members are newer members, talk about that. They don't want to kind of weigh in on an issue particularly quickly when they know that it's going to spark an intense fight.

Jewish members of the community, those who support Israel may have real questions about what's going on, but they don't think this is the right way to pursue it. And they don't think it's necessarily appropriate.

If you had a vote on the city council now, it's unclear if there would be a majority. And Mayor Carter has been very lukewarm about this. He sees it as a distraction and as something that's just going to fuel division and acrimony.

So yes, there are activists. They're pushing hard, they're loud, they're organized, but they're not necessarily reflecting the politics of Saint Paul.

CATHY WURZER: You touched on this a little bit, and of course there are-- there are, we should say, city councils all around the country who have weighed in on this, or are weighing in on it, and they've passed resolutions or have decided not to pass resolutions. Are resolutions like this one maybe not productive? You kind of mentioned this. Might they create further division? Create an environment where not everybody feels safe?

LARRY JACOBS: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think, that's kind of the issue. The activists feel that it's essential that their community go on the record on the international issue-- which, honestly, they're probably not going to have much of an effect, if any-- but they feel like this is an important moral statement. They want it, but in many communities, there are differing views. And we see that in our national politics. We see it in Saint Paul.

And again, the city council members are hearing ear fulls from both sides. The side pushing back against having a resolution so far has not been very vocal, but I think we can expect them to get very vocal if the city council were to pass it and would face Mayor Carter.

CATHY WURZER: Is the White House looking at all this? What do you think-- what do you think they're talking about behind closed doors there?

LARRY JACOBS: I think the White House, frankly, has boxed itself in. It took such a strong position in the beginning. It first encouraged Israel to go full bore into this. It provided 2,000 pound weapons and a lot of other ammunition, and now we're four or five months into the war in Gaza, and 30,000 people killed, according to the Gaza health officials.

And it's leverage does not appear to be great. The president has been making statements and privately pressing the prime minister to find a ceasefire, and he's ignoring them. His political calendar is much longer off than Joe Biden, who's going to be facing voters now, in the coming months, and then in November.

Joe Biden's got a big problem. I think he's going to see in the coming weeks and months in the primaries, a very strong backlash among Democrats who are intensely opposing what he has signed on for.

CATHY WURZER: And will Republicans look at that as a weakness?

LARRY JACOBS: I think Republicans are just delighted anytime Joe Biden is facing heartache and division. And the election in 2020 was extremely close. It was decided by, really, just 50,000 or 60,000 votes in a handful of states, so the prospect that the Democratic coalition is fracturing, that some groups of voters may just sit it out because they're so disappointed in Biden, or may actually vote for a third-party candidate to demonstrate their protest, any of that probably spells the defeat of Joe Biden. So this is probably, one of three or four issues that are really haunting the Biden campaign and could well lead to Donald Trump's election.

CATHY WURZER: I wish I had more time with you. Thank you, professor.

LARRY JACOBS: It's great to talk to you, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: We've been talking to Larry Jacobs-- professor of politics and governance at the University of Minnesota.