Justices question Minneapolis resident’s right to sue over teacher contract

CATHY WURZER: The Minnesota Supreme Court is considering a challenge to a deal between the Minneapolis school district and its teachers union. The agreement in question ended a Minneapolis teacher's strike 2 and 1/2 years ago. And it included job protections for teachers of color.

Now, before, Minneapolis Public Schools would have to lay off teachers in order of seniority. So the last ones hired would be the first to be let go. Now, the district can exempt teachers from underrepresented groups from that rule. But a Minneapolis resident sued over this provision, saying it's unconstitutional.

And what the court is weighing right now is whether a taxpayer who helps fund the district has legal standing to sue over something like a union contract. Sahan Journal Education Reporter Becky Dernbach has been following this, and she is on the line. Good to hear your voice again, Becky. How you been?

BECKY DERNBACH: Good, thank you, Cathy. How are you?

CATHY WURZER: Good. Good. This is an interesting story. Tell us about it. Who's the plaintiff in this case?

BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. So the plaintiff is named Deborah Clapp. She lives in Minneapolis, pays taxes here, doesn't work for the school district, and she's backed by the conservative law group Judicial Watch. And so she argues that this contract provision is an illegal use of her tax dollars.

CATHY WURZER: OK. Has this been done before anywhere?

BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. So Minnesota has this longstanding doctrine of taxpayer standing. And my understanding is that's common in different states as well. So in Minnesota, a taxpayer can sue if they think their tax dollars are being used illegally.

But the Minnesota Supreme Court actually had a separate case a few months ago where they clarified that that's only in certain circumstances when the central dispute is over the use of public funds. You can't just sue if you're a taxpayer and you're mad that your tax dollars are funding some policy you don't like. You have to have a specific example of how this is an illegal use of funds, and that has to be central to the argument you're making.

CATHY WURZER: OK. So there happens to be another case. Minnesota Voters Alliance versus Hunt ruling from August, I believe. Does that affect this case? And can you explain that?

BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah, exactly. So that's another example of a taxpayer filing a lawsuit over a law they disagreed with. And so that was a case in which-- Minnesota recently restored the right to vote to some 55,000 people who had been convicted of felonies. And so there was a lawsuit challenging that from taxpayers, saying they didn't think that was following the law.

And the Supreme Court determined that they didn't half standing, and they dismissed the case because Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wrote that taxpayer standing can be recognized only when the central dispute involves alleged unlawful disbursements of public funds. And they were referring to that case, a lot during their oral arguments last week. So it seems like the Supreme Court feels like they've already addressed this issue, and this is a very similar case.

CATHY WURZER: So did they talk about who might clearer standing to bring this kind of lawsuit during oral arguments?

BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. So Justice Karl Procaccini asked school district attorney Tim Sullivan that same question. And I have a clip of that moment.

KARL PROCACCINI: So if we were-- just take for a moment and we were inclined to agree with the other side that this provision might be unconstitutional, who would have standing to challenge this provision?

TIMOTHY A. SULLIVAN: So if the language were to be utilized in a manner that a teacher believed that they were being discriminated against on the basis of a protected characteristic, that teacher would have standing to challenge the application of the language upon them.

CATHY WURZER: Did the justices seem to be leaning one way or another during oral arguments?

BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. They didn't seem to see much difference between this case and the voting rights case they just heard in terms of whether taxpayers have the right to sue. And they seemed concerned about broadening taxpayer standing to cases that focus more on policy disagreements. Here's justice Anne McKeig.

ANNE MCKEIG: If we agree with you that it would be a very broad ruling, and I'm trying to think of a circumstance where, then, a taxpayer wouldn't have standing to intervene in such a proceeding-- so help me narrow that a little bit of what that would look like post-decision.

TIMOTHY A. SULLIVAN: Post-decision, I believe it would look like the same it's looked for the past 150 years, your honor. We're not asking this court to do anything new or to change the law. We're just asking the court to reaffirm its decisions going back approximately 150 years.

ANNE MCKEIG: But it seems like it is that any time a taxpayer is opposed to a policy, such as what seems to be a policy or process decision made by the school district along with the unions, that, then, you would have automatic standing to object, just alleging that there has been some form of an expenditure. It just seems too tenuous to me.

CATHY WURZER: So I'm wondering here, Becky, is it common for cases like this to be brought by taxpayers? We probably just need to touch on that one more time, I think.

BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. It happens, but the taxpayer standing doesn't always apply. And so I think the question right now is, when can a taxpayer bring a lawsuit like this? And depending on what the Supreme Court rules, it could open the doors to a lot of other lawsuits.

So some public sector unions are worried that they would become much more common if the Supreme Court says that this taxpayer has standing. There were some police unions that filed amicus briefs saying that they worried about facing lawsuits from residents because police union contracts have come under so much scrutiny in recent years.

CATHY WURZER: By the way, how is the district countering these arguments? We heard a little bit of it, but just generally speaking.

BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. The district at this point is basically saying that the case should be dismissed because she doesn't have standing, that she's just a taxpayer and she doesn't have enough to do with the union contract to be able to sue, and that maybe if she were a teacher who were directly affected by this policy and it had been brought into effect-- which, by the way, it appears to not have been, actually.

These provisions appear to not actually have been used at this point. They're saying that if they had been used and if she had been affected by them, then she would have the right to sue, but neither of those things is true. And so they're saying that the case should be dismissed.

CATHY WURZER: Say, let's talk a little bit here since we have some time about the actual contract provision that's at issue here. So, obviously, you've been busy following, and so have we, the budget woes in the Minneapolis Public Schools-- and other districts, by the way. Are you thinking that they might have to make some layoffs in Minneapolis?

BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. So let's just define "layoff" for a minute. So with teacher union contracts, there are a couple of different ways that teachers get cut during budget cycles. And a layoff only applies to tenured teachers. And the district attorney explained this during oral arguments.

He said the district actually has quite a buffer in terms of making cuts before layoffs. Because before you would lay off a tenured teacher, first, you're going to cut your tier 1 and tier 2 teachers. Those are teachers who don't have a full license, who are in the process of getting a full license.

You would also cut probationary teachers. And those are teachers who just haven't been there long enough to get tenure yet. And that's a lot of people, especially as we've been dealing with teacher shortages in recent years and districts have gotten more creative about how they're filling those positions. So the district hasn't actually laid anybody off since 2010.

And so this year, I think, we are going to be looking at potentially more budget cuts. Minneapolis Public Schools is hoping to bridge some of the budget gap this year by passing a tech levy on the ballot this November. They're probably still going to have to make budget cuts even if that passes.

And so we still haven't seen the projections for what that's going to look like. It's possible there could be budget cuts, but layoffs have been pretty rare in Minneapolis.

CATHY WURZER: But there are these protections for teachers of color.

BECKY DERNBACH: Well, the teachers of color protections apply to tenured teachers. And so last year, they ended up cutting 50 teachers at the end of their budget cycle. You remember, they had to make some pretty serious cuts last year. And so they had to rearrange some positions. In the end, they discharged 50 teachers. And they were disproportionately teachers of color.

But since they weren't tenured, they weren't laid off. And so these contract provisions didn't apply.

CATHY WURZER: OK. Thank you. Say, when might the court announce a ruling? Do we know?

BECKY DERNBACH: So they don't have a deadline. The court tells me that the average time that it takes the court to make a decision is about 4 and 1/2 months, but it can really vary.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Becky Dernbach, thank you so much for explaining this for us.

BECKY DERNBACH: Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Becky is Sahan Journal's education reporter. You can find her story at mprnews.org.