Columbia Heights, Minnesota City Council Member KT Jacobs has been under fire since 2022 after an alleged "racist" phone call she made to a city council candidate at the time.
According to the Star Tribune, a special election to recall Jacobs, set for this week, was abruptly canceled by the Minnesota Supreme Court.
A citizen's group had filed a petition in an attempt to have Jacobs removed from her position, but the state's high court ultimately intervened.
The outlet noted:
The high court ruled that the grounds stated in the petition filed by a citizens' group to have Jacobs removed from office didn't meet the legal definitions of malfeasance or nonfeasance, which are required for a recall election.
The Minnesota Supreme Court received the expedited petition after a lower court ruled that the recall election could move forward, as the court found that the petition did, in fact, prove malfeasance.
Jacobs and her attorneys appealed the lower court's decision, which kicked the case up to the state's high court.
Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wrote in the ruling that "a recall election of a municipal officer may be held only if the officer committed malfeasance or nonfeasance while in office," noting that an official opinion would be issued at a later date.
A special election set for Tuesday to recall Columbia Heights City Council member KT Jacobs has been called off, following a decision Friday by the Minnesota Supreme Court that the petitioners had failed to make their case. https://t.co/8RsK4RV6Xs
— Star Tribune (@StarTribune) February 10, 2024
Greg Joseph, Jacobs' attorney, welcomed the high court's decision.
We're very happy. The court got it right," said Joseph. "It never should have gotten this far, but it did."
"This has been nonsense from the beginning, to get rid of her over a phone call," Joseph added. "This was not malfeasance. They will have to find something better to get rid of her."
Jacobs, for years, has been under pressure to resign. The city council even passed several resolutions calling on her resignation, but she wouldn't budge.
Jacob's attorney said the fight ultimately boiled down to whether or not the phone call she made in which she reportedly questioned a candidate's ethnicity was a personal call or one made in her official capacity as a city council official.
It's unclear whether or not the citizens group who filed the petition will press for further legal action against her.
