Prior to 2022, if you had asked 1,000 random Minnesotans to name the ten most pressing issues facing the state, it is very unlikely that any of them would have listed “the state flag.” The campaign to change it was the preserve of cranks with little better to do but, when the DFL won its “historic” trifecta in 2022, the cranks got their way, and Minnesota got a new state flag which almost nobody wanted.
Our Thinking Minnesota Poll from May 2024, found that:
…an overwhelming majority of Minnesotans oppose the new state flag set to become official tomorrow as Minnesota celebrates Statehood Day. Fifty-two percent of poll respondents prefer to keep the current flag and 16% want to go back to the drawing board and come up with a different design. Only 24% support using the new flag designed by a committee empowered by the legislature last year. Only 6% had no opinion of the new flag, representing a very high awareness of the issue.
Twice as many Minnesotans preferred to keep the old flag as wanted to use the new one, but elections have consequences, as they say.
Not only was this push to change the state flag unpopular, it was also expensive. As I wrote in October 2024:
The bill establishing the commission allocated $35,000 for the design phase, but the expense doesn’t stop there. As Alpha News reports, “the actual cost of replacing flags, uniforms, and signs now falls on state agencies and municipal governments, creating significant expenses across the state”:
Alpha News has learned that the Department of Corrections (DOC) is looking at a $2.1 million bill to replace uniform patches featuring the state seal. The DOC spent an additional $10,000 to replace the state flag.
“Replacement of the state seal is estimated to ultimately cost the Department of Corrections approximately $2.1 million. The bulk of the cost derives from uniform replacement because the state seal is on every uniform patch. The agency does not intend to replace all uniforms at once, but rather make the change through attrition and when new uniform orders are placed,” a DOC spokesperson confirmed
Counties and police agencies are also expected to face significant costs from the redesign. Here’s a sample of some of the estimated costs:
- Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office: $500,000
- Dakota County: $170,000
- St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office: $50,000
- Benton County Sheriff’s Office: $50,000
- Fillmore County: $35,000
- Wright County: $150,000
- Houston County Sheriff’s Office: $32,000
- Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office: $500,000
- Dakota County: $170,000
- St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office: $50,000
- Benton County Sheriff’s Office: $50,000
- Fillmore County: $35,000
- Wright County: $150,000
- Houston County Sheriff’s Office: $32,000
Additionally, after the legislature approved the redesign process, the Minnesota State Patrol decided to create its own new logo. According to a blog on the Department of Public Safety website, the agency is expected to spend $4 million over the next six to nine months to update more than 188,000 pieces of equipment, including squad cars, badges, license plates, uniforms, hats, and signage.
All of this, of course, coming out of your property taxes.
Recently, a number of cities and counties have decided to push back on this unpopular and expensive exercise by opting to stick with the old state flag. A number of House DFLers have decided that this cannot stand and have introduced HF 5077, which would legislate a “Reduction to local government aid to a county or city that uses the incorrect state flag.”
In discussions surrounding Minnesota’s state flag you will often see people mocking those “#triggered” by the new state flag. Of course, those people were, themselves, “#triggered” enough by the old state flag to make an expensive issue out of something few people cared about and disapproved of when they did.
HF 5077 is unlikely to go anywhere this session, but as flag watchers learned in 2023, elections have consequences.
