We are a coalition of 30 organizations who are advocating for human rights, free speech, and social and environmental justice. The Anti-Boycott (BDS) laws violate our free speech rights.

Boycotts are protected, political non-violent free speech and people from the ACLU to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia have agreed. Boycotts are as American as the civil rights era
Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Boston Tea Party.

• Minnesota’s “No Boycott of Israel” Law was passed in 2017. Jewish Voice for Peace-Twin Cities and several other organizations, including MN BDS, immediately led a campaign to oppose it.
• Entities seeking a state contract must attest they are not, nor will they participate in a Boycott of Israel. Contracts would be denied to those who fail to sign or who engage in Boycotts.
• The law applies to contracts over $50,000 and does not apply to boycotts outside Israel’s borders, e.g. the territories.
• The MN BDS community is leading its third repeal campaign. JVP-TC is a coalition member.
• In addition, the MN Senate has introduced a bill in the 2025 legislative session, using similar wording of the anti-Israel boycott law, to penalize those who boycott fossil fuel and other industries. Special interest lobbies are using the anti-Israel boycott law as a template for laws that restrict public opposition to their interests, and to silence your right to free speech.

The “ask” to your legislator:

1. We have both Senate and House authors in the 2025 MN legislative session to repeal these anti-boycott laws. Now we need your help in the 2026 legislative session to repeal this unconstitutional law. Can you help us by voting YES on the repeal bill: in the Senate it is SF 3356, in the House it is HF 3258.

2. This is important to me because I believe in my right to free speech. Although I am not a vendor contracting with the State of Minnesota, I want the rights of these vendors to be protected as well. No one should have to sign away rights to conduct business with the state.

3. This is also important to me because you were elected to represent my district, not to re-do constitutionally protected rights like free speech. The right to boycott was enshrined by the Supreme Court in 1982 in NAACP v. Clairborne Hardware. Who is the State of Minnesota to disregard that Supreme Court decision?