Grassroots—Legalize Cannabis Party

The Grassroots—Legalize Cannabis Party nominated their candidates by petition in 2014 to run for Governor of Minnesota. In the race for governor, Chris Wright received 31,259 votes.[8]

In 2018, Wright again was nominated by petition to run for Minnesota Governor, and received 68,664 votes in the November general election. Wright resigned as G—LC chairperson to seek Minnesota Legal Marijuana Now Party’s nomination for Governor in 2022.[1][17]

Steve Patterson, a Brownsdale, Minnesota, businessman and opponent of Governor Tim Walz' COVID-19 lockdown, who blamed these forced closings for hurting small businesses, including his own Rochester beer taproom startup, was nominated in the August, 2022, G—LC gubernatorial primary, and advanced to the general election, getting 22,598 votes, less than one percent on November 8. In addition to legalizing cannabis for personal use, Patterson supported reducing income taxes for working class people.[18]

Even though Grassroots—Legalize Cannabis candidates have dropped out of running to support Democratic candidates in some tight races[4] and party leaders have withheld the state party's endorsement of some Grassroots—Legalize Cannabis candidates when they thought doing so might hurt the chances of winning for struggling DFLers, several times Democratic Party leaders have accused the Grassroots—Legalize Cannabis Party of making it hard for Democratic candidates in Minnesota.[19] However, a St. Cloud Times analysis of votes cast in the November 2020 election found that Grassroots—Legalize Cannabis candidates took at least as many, if not more, votes from republicans than they took from DFL candidates.[20]

In 2021, Kevin Shores told a FOX 9 television reporter that he was recruited to run for Congress from Minnesota's 7th district, where Democratic incumbent Collin Peterson lost the race to Republican challenger Michelle Fischbach, in 2020, by a Republican strategist who Shores mistakenly thought was a G—LC representative. Shores, who is blind and suffers from Gulf War syndrome, lost to Hart Anderson in the Grassroots—Legalize Cannabis Party primary.[21][16]

When a Luverne man who had been endorsed by G—LC was unable to file before the deadline, attorney Haroun McClellan filed to run in the August 9, 2022, 1st congressional district special election as a last-minute replacement. McClellan, a graduate of Georgia State University College of Law and former Hennepin County public defender, is contracts manager of a Rochester construction firm.[22]

Before Minnesota’s May, 2022, deadline to file such a change, a DFL activist, Marcus Harcus, who was 2020 G—LC nominee for District 59A state representative, attempted to hold a G—LC party meeting for the purpose of changing the state party’s name to a name the activist thought might help the Democratic Party by attracting Republicans.[23][24]

In May 2022, G—LC chair Steinberg told a Star Tribune reporter about being worried that voters “perhaps aren’t quite as well-informed as it would be good for them to be.”[17] Later in June, 2022, Steinberg said in an interview that he was frustrated about having former Libertarian candidates running under the G—LC party banner.[24]

Minnesota G—LC Party held a gubernatorial primary on August 9, 2022, between Steve Patterson & Matt Huff and Darrell Paulsen & Ed Engelmann. Patterson was nominated by G—LC voters and defeated Paulsen, receiving 59% of the party's vote, to advance onto the November 8, 2022, state general election.[25]

The G—LC Party ran statewide candidates in 2020 and 2022 but none received 5% of votes required for major party ballot access in Minnesota.[5] The party got enough votes, more than 1%, in the Minnesota State Auditor race, in 2022, to retain official minor party privileges, including state public funding.[26]

Testifying in favor of Minnesota Senate File 73 to create a regulated commercial cannabis market, in front of the Public Safety Committee in January, 2023, that marijuana prohibition has not kept people from using the drug, but has "succeeded perhaps in terrorizing or intimidating citizens, in canceling civil liberties, blighting both urban and rural communities, all without eradicating the outlawed substance," said G—LC Party chair Steinberg.[27] in May 2023, Steinberg wrote "I salute DFL lawmakers who finally understood that cannabis prohibition never was necessary; always was unjust and unjustifiable; and always lacked moral authority because it was actually designed to serve as a legal mechanism for racial repression."[28]

According to political scholar William Labovitch, Minnesota's marijuana political parties, G—LC and LMN, are the ones responsible for the DFL party championing SF 73.[29]