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David Holsinger
David "Dave" Holsinger was a candidate for Ward 8 representative on the Minneapolis City Council in Minnesota. He was defeated in the general election on November 7, 2017. Although municipal elections in Minneapolis are officially nonpartisan, candidates can choose a party affiliation to appear on the ballot.[1] Holsinger ran as a Libertarian candidate.[2]
Holsinger was also a Libertarian candidate for the District 57B seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2016.[3]
Biography
Holsinger earned a B.A. in government from the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. in Germanic linguistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.[4]
At the time of his 2017 run for city council, Holsinger was a senior product manager for Reeher LLC. His experience also includes work as the chief linguist for Cataphora, Inc., a product line manager for Apptera, a product manager for NAVTEQ, a senior product manager for HERE, and the director of product management for JOC Group Inc. Holsinger has served as the state affiliate coordinator for the Libertarian Party and the party chair for the 2nd Congressional District.[3][4]
Elections
2017
Minneapolis, Minnesota, held a general election for mayor, all 13 seats on the city council, both elected members of the board of estimate and taxation, and all nine members of the park and recreation board on November 7, 2017. The filing deadline for candidates who wished to run in this election was August 15, 2017.
Incumbents ran for re-election to all but two of the city council seats. Ward 3 Councilman Jacob Frey filed to run for mayor instead, and Ward 8 Councilwoman Elizabeth Glidden opted not to run for re-election.[5] Andrea Jenkins defeated Terry White, April Kane, and David Holsinger in the general election for the Ward 8 seat on the Minneapolis City Council.[6]
| Minneapolis City Council, Ward 8 General Election, 2017 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Andrea Jenkins |
73.09% | 5,762 |
| Terry White | 12.77% | 1,007 |
| April Kane | 9.01% | 710 |
| David Holsinger | 4.91% | 387 |
| Write-in votes | 0.22% | 17 |
| Total Votes | 7,883 | |
| Source: Minneapolis Elections & Voter Services, "2017 Minneapolis Election Results," accessed November 22, 2017 | ||
Campaign themes
2017
Holsinger's campaign website highlighted the following issues. Click "show" on the boxes below for more information about his positions.[7]
| Reforming Our Police Department |
|---|
| "Many of us are just as nervous about our trigger-happy police force as we are about the uptick in violent crime.
Something is fundamentally wrong in the MPD – something that extends down to the simplest aspects of training. Even an hour’s worth of firearms training should have kept Justine Damond alive. How did an officer have his weapon unholstered on his lap to fire across the car, endangering his partner, to shoot a civilian who was outside the car? This makes no sense whatsoever – and it can only be attributed to criminally inadequate training. The MPD needs to be reformed from even the most basic level. My key proposals are:
Voting Libertarian will protect your civil rights – the DFL has been complicit with an abusive police force and needs to be held accountable." |
| Survey Response: Clean Elections |
|---|
| "The following survey was submitted to me by the Minnesota Citizens for Clean Elections. They propose 'Democracy Vouchers' that would be issued to, and used by, registered voters to spend on elections by allocating funding to the candidate of their choice. My answers are below.
I am responding to this proposal exclusively from the perspective of a city council candidate in Minneapolis, and not reflecting state or national interests. At a philosophical level, I reject public funding of elections, though I would like to offer you my commentary on specifics of why MnCCE’s proposal would be bad for municipal elections in Minneapolis. I see this program as a transparent ploy to subsidize the DFL and its candidates with public money. In the city of Minneapolis, roughly 80% of voters chose DFL candidates during the 2016 general elections. (This is the most recent indicator of partisan affiliation available in the city.) The city council itself is comprised of 12 DFL members and 1 Green; no other party’s candidate has been elected to city council or mayor in over 20 years. As you well know, despite city elections being non-partisan, candidates can identify with a political party, and the funds tend to follow voters’ prior political convictions. Some simple math will make it clear just how much of an advantage this gives the DFL. With 224,384 registered voters in the city, at just $10 per citizen in subsidies, the city would have allocated $2.2 million to the 'clean elections' program. Given voting trends and party identification in the city of Minneapolis, this would have earmarked (through citizen allocation) roughly $1.8 million to the DFL and its candidates; the remaining $400,000 would have been split among Libertarians, Greens, Republicans, and others. Based on party affiliation alone, out of the gate, the DFL would be the beneficiary of a $1.4 million fundraising advantage against all other parties in the 2017 municipal election. Despite ranked-choice voting in the city that may enable slightly better outcomes for less-established parties, the non-DFL candidates should expect only modest gains. We can assume that outside funding will not go to (for example) a Libertarian or Green candidate if a DFL or Republican party candidate has entered the race. In my own experience in the city council election, the leading DFL candidate had already raised nearly $25,000 prior to the candidate filing period for the fall election. Much of her money had, in fact, been raised from outside interests such as unions and left-leaning PACs. In my own ward, at a hypothetical 50% participation rate in the MnCCE program among registered voters, the DFL could expect to receive an additional $71,000. As a Libertarian candidate, I would likely face an additional $66,000 funding discrepancy under MnCCE’s scheme. If the goal were to provide an equal voice to participants in the political process, each candidate would be allocated exactly the same amount of funding. The election would be less about who could afford more yard signs, and more about the candidates’ platforms. Ironically, in municipal elections in Minneapolis, the only likely equalizer to DFL hegemony is, in fact, outside money that would level the playing field for 'outsider' candidates." |
| Survey Response: Housing |
|---|
| "The following survey was submitted to me by the Make Homes Happen Coalition...
Affordable housing has become an increasingly important issue for Minneapolis residents and voters. Minneapolis residents would like to better understand where candidates for city council stand on issues related to affordable housing. To help provide this information to Minneapolis voters, Make Homes Happen has created the following list of questions for candidates. We hope that you, as a candidate for Minneapolis City Council, will provide us with the answers to these questions. Make Homes Happen organizations and partners will distribute your answers to residents. [Q]: What do you believe is the role of the City of Minneapolis in supporting, preserving, and creating decent, safe, and quality affordable housing in the City? What policies, practices, and investments would you champion to ensure housing affordability throughout the City and specifically in your ward? [DH] There is absolutely no role for the city here except for preserving public safety. Providing affordable housing is fundamentally about increasing the overall supply of housing, which equates to higher density. At its most extreme, this leads to utilitarian and generally unattractive high-rise buildings that lead to an overall degradation in the landscape of the city. I am certain that most citizens would prefer to avoid this scenario. The city already restricts certain types of real estate transactions, and charges an exorbitant abandoned building registration fee. With the recent regulation requiring landlords to consider section 8 tenants, the city has obviously put its thumb on the scale to the disadvantage of owners of investment properties. If the council continues policies like this, it only gives owners more incentive to sell their property at market rates while they still can. Why would a landlord not take the quickest opportunity to sell a property at market value before the city further restricts what she can do with her own rental units? [Q] What do you propose to do to narrow the racial homeownership gap and resulting wealth gap for households of color? How will you ensure that future generations are able to purchase homes in Minneapolis? [DH] At present, I am a renter myself – I am a former homeowner who relocated. I understand how daunting the housing market in the city can be. If we want to enable responsible, low-income home buyers to enter the market, we will need to look for creative alternative financing options. For most homeowners, providing the downpayment is the most daunting task, generally requiring years of saving and planning. To help overcome this hurdle, borrowers can turn to any number of socially-responsible alternative funding options that offer alternative mortgage options, such as a 10% downpayment, rather than the customary 20%. We should be striving to create public-private partnerships that can create a net long-term gain for the city. A city investment program (to replace subsidies) will become a socially responsible path for the city’s economic growth as well as the ability of renters to become owners. If there is, in fact, a racial gap in homeownership (and this does not simply reflect the current overall demographics of the city), then alternative funding should generate access that would reshape the nature of homeownership. [Q] As federal funding such as the Community Development Block Grant program (CDBG) becomes increasingly unstable, how will you adjust the City’s budget to continue to support affordable housing? Please be specific. [DH] A reduction in federal funding is a federal problem, not a municipal one. The city should not be shifting the taxpayer burden that provides the same benefits to recipients. Any replacement program would mean that the city requires its taxpayers to subsidize a program that would create increased administrative overhead (and therefore cost more) at the local level. [Q] What specific policies, practices, and investments do you support to prevent the involuntary economic and geographic displacement of renters due to gentrification and other rental market pressures? [DH] I would repeal the $15/hour minimum wage ordinance that is going to further crowd the low end of the housing market as it draws economic migrants from surrounding areas into the city. Some amount of tax incentive to developers might encourage them to invest in higher-density affordable housing, but it seems doubtful that the owners of nearby properties would accept a potential reduction in value of their own property that would result from proximity to this less attractive type of housing. [Q] Do you support a dedicated source of funding for affordable housing? If yes, what measures would you take to ensure the successful passage of this policy? If no, please explain. [DH] Absolutely not. The city is already behaving inequitably by collecting property taxes from homeowners and redistributing funds to a certain class of renter. It creates a vicious cycle that leads to increased rents every time a new property tax hike passes. [Q] Do you support a city policy that requires or incentivizes developers to include affordable units in market rate developments? Why or why not? Please explain. [DH] I do not. These policies directly contribute to increased rents and increased housing prices. The also constitute corporate welfare. The city would likely provide the developer incentive in the form of reduced long-term capital gains taxes – but these generally result in either modest reduction in the immediate sale prices of homes, or else require substantial city funding to the benefit of developers that is not accessible to other citizens. [Q] Do you support a policy that would help preserve naturally affordable rental housing by providing advance notice to the city of potential sales so the city can let non-profit housing developers know of purchase opportunities? Why or why not? Please explain. [DH] I will not support any policy that allows the city to prevent the transfer of private property between entities in the market. This is a fundamental violation of the right to own property. Non-profits are welcome in the marketplace as buyers, but should not be privileged over any other competitive buyer. If the right to sell property is restricted, it amounts to at least partial ownership of property by the government – it means that government has a primary and privileged right to any property over the individual who has paid for it. It means that homeowners are only allowed use of their land at the discretion of the government – a throwback to feudal serfdom. If it please the crown, one may choose to dwell upon certain lands, but only when one tithes to the king, and the land remains forever a part of the king’s territory. [Q] What more can the city do to support renter households who reside in substandard housing conditions and who may experience intimidating management practices (and/or eviction) when they seek to hold their landlord accountable? [DH] Standard rental agreements that require disclosures to tenants are already common practice. Every renter should research their legal rights and obligations when entering into a rental contact. Nonprofits exist to provide legal assistance to low-income individuals and can help them understand what options they believe the law has been violated. Both renters and landlords have legal rights pursuant to contracts and to city law; there is no reason to favor one over the other. Landlords can establish fair rents and will understand the risks of taking on tenants who might become delinquent – but they are not charities. [Q] What specific actions can the city take to support Fair Housing choice and opportunity for households who may have barriers to access housing (ex: imperfect rental history or credit, criminal background, documentation status)? [DH] Outright discrimination may be poor business practice and a knee-jerk reaction to certain types of potential renters – but poor credit history is not a protected status under the law. Homebuyers are expected to show basic creditworthiness when purchasing a home, because banks recognize the risk of loan default. Anyone entering into a mortgage obligation can expect to provide extensive documentation of their ability to pay back their mortgage. Why, then, should we require owners of investment properties to take a risk on their investment? We might as well require banks to provide sub-prime loans. As a personal example – I live with two pit bulls, and it was understandably difficult for me to find rental housing when I relocated from my prior (owned) home. My dogs are perceived as a risk (even though I’m a responsible owner and can demonstrate that they present no more risk to property than any other animal). To remedy the situation, I have taken out an extra insurance policy in addition to my standard renter’s insurance, and provided a vet’s and trainer’s documentation that my dogs are well-behaved and well cared for. I paid an extra non-refundable security deposit. These are the conditions that the market required I take. If an individual has a criminal background or is undocumented, a landlord should be able to consider those factors and adjust a rental contract accordingly." |
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms David Holsinger Minneapolis City Council. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
| Minneapolis, Minnesota | Minnesota | Municipal government | Other local coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
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External links
- Minneapolis City Council
- Campaign website
- Social media
Footnotes
- ↑ MinnPost, "Minnesota Loves to Brag About Turnout. But Minneapolis and St. Paul Residents Are Actually Pretty Bad About Voting in Municipal Elections," July 7, 2017
- ↑ City of Minneapolis, "Official Ballot," accessed November 3, 2017
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Dave Holsinger - Libertarian for Minneapolis City Council, Ward 8," accessed October 25, 2017
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 LinkedIn, "Dave Holsinger," accessed October 25, 2017
- ↑ Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Elizabeth Glidden Won't Seek Re-election to Minneapolis City Council," December 12, 2016
- ↑ Minneapolis Elections & Voter Services, "Candidate Filings - 2017," accessed August 16, 2017
- ↑ Dave Holsinger - Libertarian for Minneapolis City Council, Ward 8, "On the Issues," accessed October 25, 2017
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