# Commission *Government bodies named "commission" in the Minnesota and federal record* In Minnesota public administration, a commission is a body created by statute, executive order, special law or ordinance to regulate, investigate, advise or administer a defined matter. The instances in this record run from the Railroad and Warehouse Commission, created by the Legislature in 1887,[^1] to the advisory Saint Paul Reparations Commission established by ordinance in 2023. Federal commissions also reach the state, beginning in this record with the Civil Rights Commission created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957.[^2] The record does not describe one continuous institution. It is a set of dated instances, and each is described here by what its founding text says and what the body is documented to have done. The record repeatedly places a commission's account of itself beside its documented outputs. The [[Minnesota Commission of Public Safety]] was given "broad powers to act to ensure public safety in wartime" in 1917. It mandated English-only school instruction and required non-citizens to register property and report family data.[^3] Its 1919 report closed that Minnesota "may justly be proud."[^4] The [[Metropolitan Council (Minnesota)]] describes its 1967 charge as a directive to "plan for the orderly and economical development of the seven-county metro area."[^5] In 2023 the Legislative Auditor found that the Council "obligated funds it did not have." In 1985 a gubernatorial commission heard a petition to remove a county attorney. It found malfeasance and recommended against removal.[^6] The word also sits at the center of a pending federal action. In 1964 Senator Hubert Humphrey, floor manager of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]], told the [[United States Senate]] that Title VII gave no "power to the Commission or to any court" to require hiring to meet a racial quota.[^7] On January 14, 2026, the United States filed [[United States v. State of Minnesota (0:26-cv-00273)]] in the District of Minnesota. The complaint challenges Minn. Stat. §43A.191 under Title VII. ## Who Governors created and expanded the state's early civil-rights commissions. Gov. Edward Thye created the Governor's Interracial Commission in December 1943.[^8] Under Gov. Andersen, the State Commission Against Discrimination was expanded in 1961.[^9] [[Joseph A. A. Burnquist]] was governor from 1915 to 1921.[^10] He chaired the seven-member Commission of Public Safety.[^3] In Saint Paul in 1900, Richard T. O'Connor was appointed to a police commission created that year. In the same year his brother, John J. O'Connor, was promoted to chief of police. Appointment rules decide who controls each body. The Metropolitan Airports Commission has 15 members: 13 gubernatorial appointees and two mayors serving ex officio.[^11] Six of the seven members of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission were appointed by the Minneapolis City Council, and Ramsey County had no appointment power.[^12] The county-attorney seat on the Sentencing Guidelines Commission is filled by gubernatorial appointment under Minn. Stat. §244.09, not by designation of the county attorneys' association.[^13] Washington County Attorney Peter Orput held that seat from October 12, 2016, to April 22, 2019, and again from April 23, 2019, to August 1, 2020. The Secretary of State's record lists his departure as "Resigned – Unscheduled Vacancy."[^14] Trade press reported that Gov. Dayton appointed him in 2016 and Gov. Walz in 2019, and that the Minnesota County Attorneys Association had recommended Kyra Ladd.[^15] Ladd, the Wadena County Attorney, was appointed by Gov. Walz in September 2023 as a gubernatorial appointee.[^13] ## What Many commissions were created by session law. The Railroad and Warehouse Commission was created by Laws 1887, chapter 10, an act to regulate common carriers.[^1] The Capitol Grounds Commission followed in 1907 under Laws chapter 281. In 1945, Laws chapter 315 created the State Veterans Service Building Commission and appropriated $4,000,000. The Metropolitan Airports Commission was created in 1943 under Laws chapter 500. The Legislative Reference Library calls it "the first metropolitan agency created by the Legislature."[^11] Its taxation provisions are codified at Minn. Stat. §473.667.[^16] The State Commission Against Discrimination, created in 1955, was the precursor of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.[^17] The Department replaced it in 1967 with an expanded scope.[^18] The project record attributes both the 1967 Department and the Metropolitan Council to the administration of Gov. LeVander. It lists them among the Republican signatures it traces in the state's institutional construction. The Legislature created the Metropolitan Council in 1967, and the Metropolitan Transit Commission came the same year.[^5] Laws 1967, chapter 892, established the Twin Cities area metropolitan transit commission.[^19] In 1986 Chaska, Chanhassen and Eden Prairie opted out of the Metropolitan Transit Commission under state statute. They formed SouthWest Transit as a joint powers board.[^20] The 1994 Metropolitan Council Reorganization Act placed three bodies under direct Council authority: the Metropolitan Waste Control Commission, the Metropolitan Transit Commission and the Regional Transit Board.[^21] In the Legislative Auditor's 2023 report, the Auditor found that the Council "was not fully transparent about project costs and delays." The Council answered, in the same report, that it "is a reasonable choice to manage the construction of light rail lines." Regulatory commissions act through statute and docket. Minn. Stat. §216B.243 governs certificates of need issued by the Public Utilities Commission.[^22] In Docket 14-916 the Commission reissued the certificate of need and route permit for Line 3 and approved a revised final environmental impact statement.[^23] The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency traces its history to the Minnesota Water Pollution Control Commission.[^24] The Legislative-Citizen Commission is established at Minn. Stat. §116P.05.[^25] The Clean Water Council is listed among the state's boards and commissions in the Secretary of State's appointments system.[^26] The Sentencing Guidelines Commission's minutes of October 26, 2016, record Orput's introduction as the "newly appointed county attorney member." The same minutes record that he seconded a permissive-consecutive sentencing motion, which carried 5–4.[^27] The Commission's 2024 report to the Legislature states that its staff trained at "the Minnesota County Attorneys Association monthly CLE series."[^28] A 2019 *Star Tribune* commentary described Orput as representing "Minnesota's prosecutors on the state's Sentencing Guidelines Commission."[^29] The statute record shows that the seat is a gubernatorial appointment.[^13] County and city commissions follow the same pattern. Ramsey County's seven-member Board of Commissioners was established in 1974. A 1987 special law authorized a charter commission, and voters approved a home rule charter in 1990.[^30] The Minneapolis Charter Commission collected public comments on public safety from July 1 to 3, 2020.[^31] The Saint Paul Planning Commission received a ReConnect Rondo update on July 12, 2019.[^32] That update is part of the city's 2019 Planning Commission record.[^33] The Citizens League published the final report of Saint Paul's Community-First Public Safety Commission in May 2021.[^34] Several bodies were built around acknowledgment. Saint Paul passed an apology in Resolution 21-77 in January 2021. The city then seated an advisory reparations commission established by ordinance on February 13, 2023. As of the project record of June 2026, the harm report remained unwritten. A Minneapolis "Truth and Reconciliation" body was downgraded from "Commission" to "Process" without producing a report. The project flags its reported spending figure as pending the city's own record.[^31] Federal commissions enter the record through statute, requests and orders. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 created the federal Civil Rights Commission.[^2] Secretary of State Steve Simon formally rejected a request from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, as recorded by the [[Minnesota Secretary of State]].[^35] On January 3, 2025, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission published its Record of Decision on the subsequent license renewal of Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant Unit 1.[^36] In May 2025 the President issued an order titled *Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission*.[^37] Commissions also appear as parties in cases the project uses as legal predicates. These include *Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Commission*, 475 U.S. 1 (1986),[^38] and *Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission*, 584 U.S. 617 (2018). The project summarizes *Masterpiece* as holding that hostile enforcement of a public-accommodations law against a religious speaker violates the Free Exercise Clause.[^39] The list also includes *Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc.*, 570 U.S. 136 (2013),[^40] and the Federal Trade Commission Act §5, 15 U.S.C. §45.[^41] ## When The Governor's Interracial Commission was created in December 1943.[^8] In 1946 it expanded its work and sent more than 2,000 employer surveys.[^8] The Commission of Public Safety was created by legislation signed April 16, 1917, ten days after the United States entered the war. Its work effectively ended in April 1919, when the House voted 107–12 to abolish it, and it was formally dissolved in December 1920.[^3] At the federal level, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 on September 9, 1957.[^2] President Lyndon B. Johnson created the Kerner Commission on July 27, 1967, to investigate urban disorders. Its report of February 29, 1968, stated: "Our nation is moving toward two societies."[^42] The Tower Commission reported on February 26, 1987. On March 4, 1987, President Reagan addressed the nation on Iran-Contra and acknowledged the arms-for-hostages ex