This is the part of the political model for Gold Party which has already been tried. Starting in 1994, a small group of landlords in the poorer neighborhoods of Minneapolis successfully fought City Hall through direct political action and publicity. The group, called "Minneapolis Property Rights Action Committee", arose in response to the anti-landlord policies of politicians, police, and neighborhood groups.

This group of mostly small property owners engaged in a series of protest events related to the city's habit of scapegoating landlords for crime and using housing inspections to punish them. It held monthly meetings of members which were videotaped and later broadcast on the Minneapolis public-access and the metro cable-television stations. Members of this group also published a free-circulation newspaper, first called “The Property Owner” and then “The Watchdog”.

Minneapolis Property Rights Action Committee (MPRAC) reached a peak of membership and militancy in the period between 1998 and 2001 when it held a press conference in the mayor’s office to debunk the city’s claim that a landlord’s negligence was responsible for a well-publicized murder that had taken place in an apartment building, when its leaders conducted numerous “crack tours” to show dignitaries how easy it was to buy crack cocaine on Minneapolis streets, and when, after the city had revoked a member’s rental license, its members marched into the Minneapolis City Council chambers with picket signs during a Council meeting and closed the meeting down.

Hammering upon certain themes in its own televised meetings, the landlord group gradually convinced the public that buildings - a.k.a. “problem properties” - were not the cause of crime. It was people who committed those crimes. The group urged that the city police target the hardened or repeat criminals responsible for the bulk of crimes instead of blaming the owners of apartment buildings where these persons lived or hung out. It also criticized city government for condemning and tearing down structurally sound buildings while its leaders argued there was a shortage of affordable housing.

In 2001, outsiders seeking election to city office sought the landlord group’s support. Its televised meetings offered free publicity to such candidates in the context of a free-speech forum. A large sign at the front of its meetings that year identified the incumbent mayor and four City Council members (including the President and Vice President) as candidates whom the group wished to defeat and four Council members whom it wished to have reelected. All four in the latter group were, in fact, reelected. Three of four persons in the former group, along with the mayor, were defeated; and the fourth person, who was reelected, did not serve his full term because he was sent to prison.

After that, the Property Rights group continued for another four years amid dwindling membership before running out of money in December 2005. It has since been revived as “Metro Property Rights Action Committee”. The change in names signified that group members had also carried out protest activities in St. Paul where city government was similarly engaged in questionable practices to the detriment of property owners.

The purpose of including materials related to the landlord group on this website is not to suggest that Gold Party embrace landlord issues - although rights for property owners are among the human rights guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights issued by the United Nations - but instead to present this group as a model of effective political activity on a local level. Its key elements are: a membership focused on a particular set of issues, regular monthly meetings featuring a free-speech forum, and group-owned or managed media to spread its message to the general public.

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Those who wish to learn more about the landlord group or its issues can go to the following links:

How it got started - the group’s early history 2696 words

How this landlord group once shut down a meeting of the Minneapolis City Council 4279 words

Election blow-out in 2001 Minneapolis voters dismiss the landlord-hating politicians 1095 words

Some of the landlord “horror stories” illustrating what Minneapolis city government was doing in the 1990s:

Landlord horror story #1: A paraplegic tenant thrown on the street following condemnation of Sam Czaplewski's triplex 1672 words

Landlord horror story #2: Floyd Ruggles forced into bankruptcy after the city returned his tax payment 1012 words

Landlord horror story #3: James Wu’s battle with vagrants and scheming non-profit organizations 1514 words

Landlord horror story #4: condemnation of David Sundberg’s building by eminent domain 2630 words

Landlord horror story #5: the racial “lawsuit from hell” brought against Reynold and Pat Mattson 3005 words

Landlord horror story #6: Community policing isn't what it's cracked up to be 3265 words

City officials in the “Twin Cities” of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, were apparently talking with each other about how to make property owners the “fall guy” for their own failings with respect to crime. Across the Mississippi river, in St. Paul, the targets of city attacks seemed more to be home owners or the owners of bars and, for some reason, female.

First, some “horror stories” from that side of the river:

Homeowner horror story #1: Betty Speaker's house is condemned by a harassing inspector. 772 words

Homeowner horror story #2: When Nancy Osterman refuses to become a drug informant, the city goes after her house. 4141 words

Bar owner horror story: Debra Johnson is blamed for crime by city officials and a Roman Catholic priest. 3767 words

What Property Rights people did to challenge the St. Paul politicians:

How Mayor Randy Kelly was defeated in the 2005 municipal elections after two landlord-led picketing events at St. Paul city hall 808 words

How agents of the Watchdog newspaper infiltrated a community meeting to confront an abusive City Council member 1278 words

In the political culture of the Twin Cities, the landlord activists were generally considered to be vile right-wingers or conservatives. Critics often charged that these individuals were themselves irresponsible landlords, guilty of negligent property management, whose flamboyant political activities were a smokescreen for their own bad performance. Others, somewhat more sympathetic, considered them to be a rental-housing industry group. In the landlords’ own eyes, they were neither. They were instead a “good government” group. They were like a union for landlords that confronted abusive city government to avoid being picked off one by one.

Can those landlords be considered “progressives” - in some sense, representing progress toward a more humane and decent society? Persons interested in contemporary political philosophy may enjoy these two articles:

Minneapolis landlords and Chinese peasants 1660 words
Landlords looking for a place in the progressive spectrum 4779 words

Note:

English speakers can seek further information about the landlord group at this website: http://www.landlordpolitics.com. It is titled “The Archives of Minneapolis Property Rights Action Committee”. Some of the archival material has been presented here. The rest has not been translated from English into other languages.