Katie Jones (Minnesota)
Katie Jones (Democratic Party) is a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, representing District 61A. She assumed office on January 14, 2025. Her current term ends on January 12, 2027.
Jones (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Minnesota House of Representatives to represent District 61A. She won in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Jones completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Katie Jones was born in Lebanon, Indiana. Jones graduated from Purdue University in 2010. Her professional experience includes working as a community program & policy manager at the Center for Energy and Environment. [1]
Elections
2024
See also: Minnesota House of Representatives elections, 2024
General election
General election for Minnesota House of Representatives District 61A
Katie Jones defeated Toya López in the general election for Minnesota House of Representatives District 61A on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Katie Jones (D) | 83.9 | 18,234 | |
| Toya López (G) | 15.1 | 3,284 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 1.0 | 209 | ||
| Total votes: 21,727 | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Minnesota House of Representatives District 61A
Katie Jones defeated Will Stancil and Isabel Rolfes in the Democratic primary for Minnesota House of Representatives District 61A on August 13, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Katie Jones | 43.2 | 3,956 | |
| Will Stancil | 36.4 | 3,340 | ||
| Isabel Rolfes | 20.4 | 1,872 | ||
| Total votes: 9,168 | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Dylan McMahon (D)
Campaign finance
Endorsements
Jones received the following endorsements. To view a full list of Jones's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here.
- Attny. Gen. Keith Ellison (D)
2021
See also: City elections in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2021)
General election
General election for Minneapolis City Council Ward 10
The ranked-choice voting election was won by Aisha Chughtai in round 3 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.
| Total votes: 10,659 |
||||
Candidate profile
Party: Democratic Party
Incumbent: No
Political Office: None
Submitted Biography: "I’m an engineer, a climate advocate, and a community builder. I’ve served as President of the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association Board, a member of the Minneapolis Parks Community Advisory Committee, as part of Minneapolis’ Capital Long Range Improvement Committee, and on the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Sustainable Transit Board. I like to consider myself a local government nerd. I worked within City Hall for years and in my current day job, I work with cities around the state developing and implementing policies and programs that help achieve their climate goals. As an engineer, I’m a pragmatist. My job is to take on tough problems on a daily basis and in the City of Minneapolis we are facing many tough problems. From housing to public safety to sustainability and climate change, our community is grappling with how to provide the best possible solutions to these complex problems. As a member of the City Council, I want to work with you to build a Minneapolis that is more just, connected, and sustainable."
This information was current as of the candidate's run for Minneapolis City Council Ward 10 in 2021.
Campaign themes
2024
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released May 15, 2024 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Katie Jones completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Jones' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
Originally from rural Indiana, my parents were small business owners who showed me how to turn aspiration into reality through hard work. I earned my degree in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from Purdue and moved to Minnesota to work for Habitat for Humanity in Rochester. My husband and I settled down in Minneapolis where we have lived for over a decade. I love this district because when I first moved here, I found welcoming neighbors who opened doors for me and made me feel like I belong—I believe everyone deserves to have that.
I am someone who shows up for our community. As Chair of the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association, I actively increased renter representation on the board. I've been elected to leadership five of the eight years I've served on the Minneapolis Capital Long-Range Improvement Committee that oversees funding for infrastructure projects and upgrades across our city.- I have a vision to build a more just, resilient and thriving Minnesota.
It starts with justice for a reason. Our state should work to end racial disparities, ensure no community is left behind, and make sure the things we need for our lives are within reach.
I want to build a resilient state where our systems work for the people they are built for and can withstand the unknown, from economic downturn to pandemics and climate change.
And I want to build a thriving Minnesota that is livable for our communities today and the future. Where our quality of life is measured by our deep connection to community and our ability to reach our highest potential in our health, our well-being and environment. - Our district is facing tough challenges right now. Our public schools have experienced decades of underfunding, and our City has a ~$20 million budget deficit on the horizon. This is a moment when Minneapolis needs a champion at the State Capitol to take care of the urgent needs of today and guarantee its future success. For our schools, a first step I’d take is to close the special education cross subsidy. Then, to address enrollment issues I’d work on state solutions to make Minneapolis an affordable place to live. I aim to work to grow our tax base by investing in livability, access to housing, stabilize property taxes by pursuing an increase to Local Government Aid, and pilot ways to revitalize Downtown and Uptown.
- I’m lucky to call our retiring Representative, Frank Hornstein, a mentor. We’ve worked closely on nation-leading climate and transportation policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I hope to carry on his legacy of compassionate and collaborative politics, working productively with anyone regardless of their background, identity or politics. Frank brings people together, and that’s what I strive to do through responsive governance and bringing empathy and compassion to the evidence-based policy solutions I hope to champion. We can accomplish more by working collaboratively, as Frank has done.
Transportation: People should have reliable and efficient transportation options to fit their needs—whether it's driving, public transit, rideshare, or active modes. Transportation is the top source of emissions in the state. I will champion for a quality transit system—improving safety, cleanliness, frequency, and affordability.
Humility: No individual is perfect, can know all, and can be the source of all good ideas. An effective leader recognizes this, surrounded themselves with smart people, acknowledges mistakes, and is open to new ideas that can come from anywhere.
A vision and commitment to a foundation of shared values: I firmly believe this district shares the values of building a more just, resilient, and thriving Minnesota. That is our north star. We may have different preferred strategies to get there, but the aim is always forward to achieve that vision.
Most importantly, all of this work is driven by my north star of building a just, resilient, and thriving Minnesota. I am steadfast in this vision but flexible in the approach, which means I can work with others to achieve it. Solid relationships and an ability to work in coalitions is how we build successful policy over ideology, and that's been the cornerstone of my proven leadership.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
2021
Video for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released September 30, 2021 |
Katie Jones completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Jones' responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
I worked within City Hall for years and in my current day job, I work with cities around the state developing and implementing policies and programs that help achieve their climate goals. As an engineer, I’m a pragmatist. My job is to take on tough problems on a daily basis and in the City of Minneapolis we are facing many tough problems. From housing to public safety to sustainability and climate change, our community is grappling with how to provide the best possible solutions to these complex problems.
As a member of the City Council, I want to work with you to build a Minneapolis that is more just, connected, and sustainable.Sustainability - I am committed to expanding organics recycling to all renters, updating the City’s Climate Action Plan, and investing in green entrepreneurship — especially in BIPOC communities.
Public Safety - I am committed to implementing a Department of Public Safety which delivers mental health and substance use resources and prioritizes violence intervention.
- Renter Protection - I am committed to focusing public money on deeply affordable housing, promoting rent stabilization, and building new, family-sized homes.
Policies that help keep people in their homes like rent stabilization and the Tenant Opportunity To Purchase (TOPA) Act, must be implemented alongside policies which make it easier to build new and different types of housing like boarding house rooms, senior living, ADUs, cooperatives, and triplexes. To ensure that current businesses, especially BIPOC and women-owned businesses, aren’t also being priced out of the community, I support the development of commercial community land trusts to keep commercial space perpetually affordable. In Ward 10, there is a current pilot project testing how to best operationalize community land trusts in commercial spaces, and I aim to take lessons learned and scale the program to areas throughout Minneapolis.
Our roads are currently almost entirely car focused and that needs to change. As a part of the grassroots advocacy group Hennepin for People, I have helped organize direct action events, built a coalition of neighbors, businesses, and elected officials, and pushed City planners to follow the Transportation Action Plan and adopt a design with dedicated bus and protected bike lanes. Hennepin needs to be the example by which future city road projects are measured. Improving our street design to be people centric is good for all users and good for business. Data from cities around the world and in climates similar to ours shows that business improves with increased access by various modes. Solely focusing our roads on cars or any piece of infrastructure on a single group of people does not serve our entire city and should not be accepted.
Over the past decade, I’ve worked extensively on clean energy in cities around the state, including Minneapolis, having developed and implemented multiple energy disclosure, energy audit, and sustainable building policies in the Metro. While working in the Sustainability Office in City Hall, I calculated the City’s greenhouse gas inventory and know that our focus must be on decarbonizing the 100,000 buildings in our city and our transportation system. Leveraging the utility franchise fees, we can incentivize beneficial electrification of buildings, reduce natural gas use, and direct funds to the Green Cost Share, which provides energy efficiency grants to businesses with enhanced incentives for those in Green Zones. None of this can happen without increasing skilled clean energy workers. We must join local educational partners to attract and train new electricians, HVAC technicians, insulators, and solar installers, especially focusing job pipelines and fostering entrepreneurship in BIPOC communities.
For too long we’ve seen armed police response as the first and only tool to address public safety. As the famous urban journalist, Jane Jacobs, stressed: community safety is supported by having eyes on the street. However, that does not have to come with weapons and should provide resources to proactively meet people’s needs. We need unarmed patrols, which are trained first responders to walk neighborhoods, be a friendly face to business owners and residents, provide resources to those experiencing homelessness, and call in additional responders when needed. Creating such a force that is under the level of police would circumvent the State’s prohibition on residency requirements and allow us to enhance our public safety system with staff from local neighborhoods. Just as Ben Franklin founded the country’s first firefighting brigade and the Freedom House Ambulance Service created the country’s first paramedics in the 1960s, it’s once again time to innovate in the public safety field and create prevention-focused community safety specialists.
A 15-minute city is one where all residents can access their everyday destinations within a 15 minute walk, bike, roll, or transit ride. When I talk with neighbors, they love the walkability, bikeability, and transit options in Ward 10 and want to see that be even better. They’re also worried about speeding vehicles on streets with children and about how to efficiently travel around without harming the planet
The City can pull two levers to make this a reality: zoning authority and public right of way jurisdiction. With the first, the City can encourage complete neighborhoods - ones with grocery stores, pharmacies, and daycare centers among other necessities. And with the second, the City can build complete streets by improving pedestrian access, expanding bike infrastructure, partnering with MetroTransit to build out our bus rapid transit system, and using our lever of municipal consent to encourage MNDOT to add dedicated transit as part of the Re-Thinking I-94 project.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Note: Community Questions were submitted by the public and chosen for inclusion by a volunteer advisory board. The chosen questions were modified by staff to adhere to Ballotpedia’s neutrality standards. To learn more about Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection Expansion Project, click here.
Campaign website
- Click here to view an archived version of Jones' campaign website.
Scorecards
A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.
Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.
Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states. To contribute to the list of Minnesota scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
|
Candidate Minnesota House of Representatives District 61A |
Officeholder Minnesota House of Representatives District 61A |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 07, 2021
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Frank Hornstein (D) |
Minnesota House of Representatives District 61A 2025-Present |
Succeeded by - |
