Minnesota.
Article I, Section 2 of the Minnesota Constitution still permits slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. A bill to strike the words was introduced in 2025. The network has published audit findings on the State's own rules.
Documents gathered and read September 30, 2026. Tracker entry ยท The audit findings
Inside the Minnesota State Capitol, St. Paul. The bill to strike the exception has been introduced here. It has not left committee.
Photograph: xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.Minnesota Constitution, Article I, Section 2.
There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the state otherwise than as punishment for a crime of which the party has been convicted.
Minnesota entered the Union in 1858 as a free state. The sentence above has carried the exception since statehood.
Read from: Minnesota Constitution, full text (PDF, Office of the Revisor of Statutes).
H.F. 3335 and S.F. 3536, 94th Legislature.
Introduced in the House May 17, 2025 with sixteen authors, and referred to the Committee on Public Safety Finance and Policy. If adopted, the amendment would strike the words "otherwise than as punishment for a crime of which the party has been convicted" and put this question to the voters:
Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to prohibit slavery or involuntary servitude as criminal punishment for a crime?
The bill as introduced names the 2026 general election. It was not reported out of committee. A constitutional amendment in Minnesota must pass both houses and then win a majority of all voters casting ballots at the election, not only those voting on the question.
Read from: H.F. 3335, bill status and text, Office of the Revisor of Statutes. The bill as introduced (PDF).
On the State's own rules.
The network ran its instruments on Minnesota's written rules. Three findings, each on its own axis, never added together: the badges of slavery on the State's record, the powers exercised inside the prisons, and the four Nations on their own axis. The custody figure was ruled July 27, 2026 after a sealed draft and a blind second read. The plea form has not yet been audited.
The spine of the custody finding is the coupling of discipline, time, and labor. Under Minn. Stat. 244.05, refusing work becomes prison time.
In Minnesota.
Minnesota is a member state of the network. Contact details for the state coalition are on the tracker. Write to the network.
The record, to download.
- H.F. 3335 as introduced, May 17, 2025 (PDF)
- Minnesota Constitution, full text (PDF)
- Minn. Stat. 244.05, supervised release term, Office of the Revisor of Statutes
- The exception is in the constitution. Removing it takes a bill through both houses and a majority of all voters at a general election.
- The bill's question is quoted as the bill states it. The network's own model text is on The Bill.
- The audit findings are provisional where the page says so. No lived record has yet tested the checks the run credited.
Cite this page. Abolish Slavery National Network, “Minnesota: The Exception and the Bill,” https://abolishslavery.us/state-mn.html.