DANIEL BICE

Bice: Mandela Barnes distances self from increasingly unpopular, left-wing defund police and abolish ICE movements

Daniel Bice
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Lieutenant Gov. Mandela Barnes has tried to stake out his place as a liberal candidate seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate.

But Barnes is now distancing himself from two unpopular, far-left political movements — defunding police and abolishing ICE — despite support from groups backing these efforts and past social media activity referencing these causes. 

Indeed, in the case of "Abolish ICE," the 35-year-old Milwaukee Democrat even got the T-shirt. 

"Don't know how I missed this reply, but I need that," Barnes tweeted July 4, 2018, when a Madison activist offered him a red "Abolish ICE" shirt from the Democratic Socialists of America in his size.

Not long after, someone with the Wisconsin Democratic Socialists posted a picture of Barnes on Reddit posing with the shirt calling for the eradication of the  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The same picture is also on Twitter. 

On the shirt, an American eagle is clutching barbed wire and handcuffs with its talons while three hands pluck white feathers from the bird.

Wrote the person on Reddit: "Apparently the newly elected Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin is a fan of DSA."

And the effort to dismantle the agency in charge of detaining immigrants — or so it would appear. 

But Barnes said that is not the case. 

In a statement, the former two-term state lawmaker, who is leading the Democratic field in the race to take on Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, said recently that he did not jump on the abolish ICE bandwagon — despite any previous appearances.

"I am not a part of the Abolish ICE movement because no one slogan can capture all the work we have to do," Barnes said in the statement.

"But I do support comprehensive reform in our immigration agencies that protect our borders while establishing a pathway to citizenship and ensuring no one coming to this country has to experience traumas like family separation."

In 2018, around the time Barnes was posing with the T-shirt, immigration rights activists had begun calling for the elimination of ICE in response to the Trump administration’s border policy separating parents from children, drawing attention around the world.

Biden administration officials continue to detain migrants In ICE facilities, though the number is down from its peak of 50,000 in custody under then-President Donald Trump. There are currently more than 21,000 detainees.

Democrats running for president in 2020 urged a wide range of reforms. Asked if he sided with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who wants to dismantle the federal agency, or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who wants to overhaul it, Barnes demurred.

"I’m not in any one person’s camp, but I respect what they both bring to this important conversation," Barnes wrote.

That's not the only area where Barnes — who has argued for Democrats to be "bolder in our messaging" — distanced himself from the far left of the party.

Liberal groups endorse Barnes

Barnes has received the endorsement of five national groups that have called for defunding the police, which became a rallying cry among many activists after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis in May 2020.

The call to "defund the police" has been the subject of intense debate. Some proponents argued it meant shifting resources from police agencies to social services, while others saw it more strictly as reducing funding or even abolishing the police.

In November, Barnes was a speaker at a major meeting of the Center for Popular Democracy, which is a supporter of defundpolice.org. The center tweeted last year, "Defund police. Defund police states. Defund militarized occupation. Defund state-sanctioned violence."

Barnes has even posted a couple of tweets that seem to suggest he has supported the movement, such as his July 10, 2020 post: "Defunding the police only dreams of being as radical as a Donald Trump pardon."

"We need to invest more in neighborhood services and programming for our residents, for our communities on the front end," Barnes told PBS Wisconsin in 2020. "Where will that money come from? Well, it can come from over-bloated budgets in police departments, you know?"

He also held a fundraising bash with what one conservative outlet said was "a who’s who in the Madison defund-the-police movement" late last year. He once praised Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who favored dismantling Minneapolis' Police Department, as "brilliant."

But in his statement, the former two-term legislator said he is not supportive of the liberal drive to defund police. His past statements to the media have left it unclear whether he supported the cause

"I don’t support defunding the police," Barnes declared definitively in a statement first provided to the Wall Street Journal.

He went on to say in the statement that he has taken part in the swearing-in ceremonies for law enforcement officers. He said he favored a policy of spending money to prevent crime and providing police with the resources needed "to keep us safe."

"We can help prevent crime by investing in schools, good-paying jobs, and opportunities for every individual to work hard and see success — and we should do that across Wisconsin," Barnes said.

As for the numerous groups that favor defunding police but are backing him, Barnes had little to say.

His campaign declined to provide the Journal Sentinel with his answers to the endorsement questionnaires from the Center for Popular Democracy, Democracy for America, Indivisible, MoveOn.org or the Working Families Party. Each of these groups also supports the movement to eliminate ICE. 

The Working Families Party gave $9,000 to Barnes' campaign, and MoveOn.org chipped in $5,000. Barnes, a former national committee member of the Working Families Party, had his campaign fined $1,652 in 2020 for taking too much money from the group's political action fund. 

"These groups are endorsing the lieutenant governor, not the other way around," said Maddy McDaniel, spokeswoman for the Barnes campaign. 

HIs campaign also noted that each of the five groups had endorsed moderate Democrats who did not support either defunding police or abolishing ICE. Three of them, for instance, backed President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. 

A spokesman for one of the groups, the Center for Popular Democracy, said it was aware that Barnes did not support defunding police when it endorsed him last year. The group also supported him in his 2018 race for lieutenant governor. 

Until recently, the Center for Popular Democracy was not listed among the groups endorsing Barnes on his campaign website.  

"We are proud to endorse him," said Colin Hicks, senior political manager for CPD Action. "He has been clear that he does not support defunding the police." 

Republicans accuse Barnes of election-year conversion

Not everyone thinks Barnes is being straight with the voters on these issues. 

Anna Kelly, spokeswoman for the state Republican Party, accused Barnes of undergoing a "convenient" election-year conversion on the issues. 

"Mandela Barnes clearly plans to duck, dodge and waffle his way through his campaign as he tries to both appease his far-left base while avoiding committing political suicide by publicly acknowledging his fringe views against law enforcement," Kelly said.

Barnes' statements putting distance between him and the two left-wing movements come as both have lost steam nationally. 

A Pew Research Survey found late last year that the share of adults who want increased spending on their local police currently stands at 47% compared to 31% in June 2020. Only 15% of respondents said they wanted to cut financial support for police.

Just last week, a Politico/Morning Consult poll found that 68% of voters think giving more money to police would lower crime rates. Among Democrats, the figure had jumped from 46% to 59% in the past year. 

Earlier this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that the idea of defunding the police doesn't have a future in the Democratic Party. 

“I quote one of my colleagues from New York, Ritchie Torres, a brand new member of Congress way on the left, saying that ‘defund the police’ is dead," Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week.” "That causes a concern with a few in our caucus. But public safety is our responsibility.”

The move to abolish ICE is proving to be equally unpopular in polling over the last four years. 

Barnes' top Democratic competitors — Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry, state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski and Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson — said they do not support either of the two liberal movements. 

To reduce crime and keep communities safe, Godlewski said, officials need to invest in law enforcement so more cops can be hired and to put money into "wrap-around services, such as mental health care and social workers."

Nelson said he doesn't want to eradicate ICE but he said reforms need to be enacted to make sure it is not "acting recklessly or without any oversight." As for his thoughts on defunding police, Nelson was more direct:

"I don't support defunding the police, nor have I ever tweeted that I do."

Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 313-6684 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.