BNB Note:
Below, is a guest editorial from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Ellison has served as Minnesota’s Attorney General since 2019. From 2007-2019, Ellison represented Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representative. Prior to that, he also served for four years in the Minnesota House. Ellison is seeking reelection to a third term this November.
My Republican opponent, Ron Schutz, thinks it is “preposterous” for Minnesota’s Attorney General — that’s me, Keith Ellison — to help make life more affordable. “Who does he think he is?” he asked on video. “The chairman of the Federal Reserve?”
I am not the chairman of the Federal Reserve. I am the lawyer for the people of Minnesota. Minnesota law gives the Attorney General the responsibility to go after the unfair, deceptive, and anticompetitive practices that drain money from families who are already stretched thin.
Mr. Schutz can mock me all he wishes. But he cannot wish that duty away enshrined in Minnesota Statutes section 8.31. And if he thinks it shouldn’t be a top priority, he’s just wrong.
What the law says
Start with the statute. Minnesota law says the Attorney General “shall investigate violations of the law of this state respecting unfair, discriminatory, and other unlawful practices in business, commerce, or trade.” The word is “shall,” not “may.” The Legislature did not make this optional.
The statute then lists the laws the Attorney General must enforce, including the Consumer Fraud Act, the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, false advertising law, and Minnesota’s antitrust law. It gives the office tools to do the work: the power to investigate, to demand documents and testimony, to go to court to stop unlawful conduct, and to seek civil penalties and other relief.
Look at what those laws cover: Consumer fraud. Price-fixing. Monopolies. Hidden fees. False promises. Each one is about money taken out of the pockets of Minnesotans through unfair dealing. When a company inflates prices by crushing competition, families pay more. When a landlord piles on junk fees, rent goes up. When a lender hides the true cost of a loan, a household falls further behind. Stopping those practices is affordability work. Section 8.31 says so, even if it doesn’t use the word.
Affordability is about the price of a gallon of milk and a gallon of gas, but it’s more than that. It’s also about whether a diabetic can pay for insulin, or whether a family is overcharged at a moment of emergency. It’s about whether a renter gets gouged by fees no one disclosed. Whether a worker loses wages to an employer who cheats, or whether a student is sold a worthless degree and a mountain of debt.
These are real cases that I have brought and won for Minnesotans — and Ron Schutz ridicules me for it. Every dollar recovered, every illegal fee stopped, and every scheme shut down is money that stays with the people who earned it. That’s not a campaign slogan. That’s my mission and my burning passion. It’s the plain purpose of the laws the Legislature directed my office to enforce.
Affordability must be the priority
Ron Schutz didn’t misspeak. He’s just echoing what Donald Trump has already said. During a speech at the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention in Dallas, Trump explicitly labeled Americans’ focus on the affordability crisis as “fake” and a political hoax. So, Trump and Mr. Schutz agree.
Mr. Schutz is not ignorant. He’s been a lawyer for years. He’s just on the side of these concentrated monopolies and politicians, like Trump, who are driving the cost of living up right along with their profits. ExxonMobil recently reported doubling its second-quarter profits to $14.53 billion, driven by a spike in global oil prices following the start of the conflict with Iran. According to his Statement of Economic Interest (SEI), Ron owns a chunk of ExxonMobil. By the way, I am suing ExxonMobil for climate deception.
Mr. Schutz and I aren’t just reading the same statute differently. We view the world differently. I believe the Minnesota Attorney General should use the Office to protect your family in this deeply unfair and unequal economic environment. It should protect you and your family from an aggressive and overreaching federal government. On the other hand, Ron Schutz is saying the struggles of working Minnesotans aren’t the Attorney General’s concern.
I believe the Minnesota Attorney General should enforce the rules of fair dealing in Minnesota. In hard economic times, the need for that enforcement grows. People with little room in their budgets are the ones hurt most by fraud and price-gouging. They are also the least able to hire a lawyer and fight back. That is exactly why the Legislature gave the fight to the Attorney General. An Attorney General candidate who shrugs at affordability is someone who plans to leave those families to fight on their own.
So when Mr. Schutz calls it “preposterous” for the Attorney General to fight for families’ economic livelihoods, the voters should hear what he’s really saying: “Affordability ain’t my job.”
Well, section 8.31 says it is the Attorney General’s job. A candidate who rejects the core duty of the office, spelled out in state law, has disqualified himself from holding it.