Steve Brandt

Steve Brandt is a lifelong Minnesotan who grew up in St. Paul and Roseville and later moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota. He has lived most of his adult life in Minneapolis, including 49 years in the King Field neighborhood, where he and his wife, Lynda McDonnell, raised their two sons.

Steve spent 40 years as a reporter for the Star Tribune, covering state government, agriculture, Hennepin County, and Minneapolis. His reporting on the 1980s farm crisis earned three national awards, and he received the Frank Premack Public Affairs Journalism Award for his lifetime of work. He also studied at the University of Michigan through a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and was active in the Newspaper Guild of the Twin Cities.

Deeply committed to Minneapolis, Steve has long been involved in community life. Before retiring, he served on his neighborhood board, coached soccer, led church councils, helped lead a scout troop, and helped launch the RiverLake Greenway. Since retiring, he has served on the Capital Long-Range Improvement Committee, advocated for voting rights for people with felony convictions and for driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, and worked on projects like the Great Northern Greenway and the Mapping Prejudice Project. He also helps organize commemorations of the 1934 truckers’ strike and supports immigrant members of his church.

In his free time, Steve gardens, runs and bikes long distances, and enjoys reading history.

Eric Harris Bernstein

Eric Harris Bernstein is a South Minneapolis resident and a progressive policy analyst with more than 10 years of experience working on state, local, and federal issues. 

Bernstein grew up in New York City and lived in several states before settling in South Minneapolis. While he has lived in many places, he chose to make his home in Minneapolis because of its strong sense of community.

He began his career as a policy researcher at the Roosevelt Institute, where he learned from leading progressive thinkers. That experience shaped his focus on taxes and public investment as central solutions to today’s economic challenges.

Since 2020, Bernstein has served as Coalition Director of We Make Minnesota, a group of labor and community organizations working for a fair and equitable tax system. In that role, he has helped oppose tax cuts for the wealthy, organized with union members, and worked alongside Minnesotans whose basic needs are not being met.

In his free time, he enjoys biking, running, cross-country skiing, and working in his yard.