Minnesota newspapers on marriage, voting amendments: a resounding 'No'

Minnesotans may be split on this fall’s two proposed constitutional amendments, but Minnesota’s newspapers are not. Through Wednesday, no paper has endorsed Minnesota’s anti-gay-marriage amendment, and only two (the Fairmont Sentinel and St. Paul Pioneer Press) have said “yes” to the voter ID amendment.

You can see the tidal wave of opposition in the chart below, which lists 50 state papers, their verdicts on the amendments, and links to their opinions.

Blank verdicts indicate the paper has not yet weighed in; there are a couple of marriage amendment maybes. Papers stating they will make no endorsement are listed as “pass.” Only editorials are counted, not columns from individual writers.

“Vote No Twice” forces have been greatly helped by opposition from the state’s two largest chains, Forum Communications and ECM. Forum (conservative but of a more libertarian bent) and ECM (founded by the extinct species of liberal Republican) each placed a corporate-sanctioned editorial in more than two dozen papers.

If you count each chain as a single entity, the marriage-amendment scorecard as of Wednesday night, Oct. 31 is:

0 Yes
2 Maybe
15 No
2 Pass

On voter ID:

2 Yes
21 No

Do newspaper endorsements matter? Activists work hard to get them, but if they were always determinative, Norm Coleman would still be U.S. Senator.

I do know that that the opposition as of now comes from papers big and small, chain and independent, rural and metro. Newspaper readers tend to skew older … just like the voting public.

The table below indicates newspaper editorial positions on the proposed amendments. To read the editorials, click on the newspaper’s position. (Some editorials are no longer available online.)

See a newspaper editorial not listed here? Email it to dbrauer@minnpost.com or notify me at @dbrauer on Twitter.