Golden Turkey Nominee: The new Minnesota state flag and seal

It wasn’t enough for the 2023 legislature to spend the entire surplus, raise taxes and add thousands of new government bureaucrats. They had to do one more thing: change the state flag and seal. Democrats in the House and Senate put together a rushed process that lacked any real input from the citizens resulting in a bland new flag design and a state seal that violates the very law used to create it in the first place. Worst of all, the legislature added language forcing every city, county and school board to immediately replace all flags and seals using the old design, instead of allowing them to replace them over time as current supplies are exhausted. For this reason, the new flag and seal design earn a 2024 Golden Turkey Award nomination.

The new flag received the most nominations from our online nomination process, second only to the ever-popular nomination of Tim Walz (reminder: the Golden Turkey Award goes to a project, not a person).

The bill establishing a commission to replace the flag and seal allocated $35,000 for the design phase, but the expense doesn’t stop there. As Alpha News reported, “the actual cost of replacing flags, uniforms, and signs now falls on state agencies and municipal governments, creating significant expenses across the state.” The Department of Corrections alone estimated it will spend $2.1 million replacing flags and seals. The Department of Public Safety is expected to spend $4 million in 2024 to update more than 188,000 pieces of equipment, including squad cars, badges, license plates, uniforms, hats, and signage. Instead of allowing government agencies to phase in the new flag and seal over time, the legislature mandated all old inventory must be replaced by January 1, 2025.

Expendable material to which the seal in effect prior to May 11, 2024, or any impression, scene, or likeness of that seal is currently affixed may be used until the supply is exhausted or until January 1, 2025, whichever occurs first.

But it was racist…

The wasteful approach to replacement is the reason the new flag and seal are nominated for a Golden Turkey Award, But the false narrative used as justification for replacing the seal is equally outrageous. The entire redesign was based on the idea that the old seal depicts a Native American on horseback riding away towards the setting sun. The whole premise of the redesign is that the current flag and seal are racist.

• Rep. Mike Freiberg (DFL-Golden Valley), who authored the bill to change the flag called the old design “genocidal toward Native Americans.”
• A Minnpost article from February titled “Let’s talk about our racist state flag” called the former flag “the functional equivalent of a stadium crowd doing the tomahawk chop.”
• Native American artist Kathryn Moore wrote that the old seal told a bad story: “The Native American on horseback — riding away with the setting sun — tells a story that celebrates Native displacement and promotes white racial superiority.”

But according to the Minnesota Historical Society, the “racism” of the original state seal was removed in a 1983 revision. The original territorial seal did include a Native American on horseback riding west into the setting sun, a clear depiction of their displacement to reservations in Southwestern Minnesota and South Dakota. But the 1983 legislature changed the direction and meaning of his Native American depicted on the seal. According to MN Statutes 1.135:

Subd. 5.Historical symbolism of seal.

The sun, visible on the western horizon, signifies summer in the northern hemisphere. The horizon’s visibility signifies the flat plains covering much of Minnesota. The Indian on horseback is riding due south and represents the great Indian heritage of Minnesota.

Ironically, this language was removed from the law with the passage of the bill creating the new flag and seal. So the “great Indian heritage of Minnesota” on the old seal has been replaced with a loon. What progress for Minnesota Native Americans!

The flag and seal replacement probably have a big head start in Golden Turkey voting since the May 2024 Thinking Minnesota Poll showed an overwhelming majority of Minnesotans opposed the new state flag. Fifty-two percent of poll respondents preferred to keep the old flag and 16% wanted to go back to the drawing board and come up with a different design. Only 24% supported using the new flag designed by the committee empowered by the legislature.

One last reason to vote for the flag and seal: the language added to the seal to replace “Star of the North” probably violates the law that created it. The law states: “Symbols, emblems, or likenesses that represent only a single community or person, regardless of whether real or stylized, may not be included in a design.” The Commission added the words “Mini Sota Makoce” to the seal, which is a Dakota phrase meaning “the land where the water reflects the skies.” How does adding this phrase not represent “a single community?” Not only does it exclude all non-native people, it excludes all Native Americans in Minnesota who are not Dakota.

The new flag and seal was created under a false narrative, will cost millions to replace and stands in violation of its enacting legislation, giving Minnesotans three very good reasons to award it the 2024 Golden Turkey.

To cast your vote for the 2024 Golden Turkey, click here.