State Senator Kelly Morrison runs for Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District

Incumbent Dean Phillips not seeking re-election

By Steve Share, Minneapolis Labor Review editor

DEEPHAVEN — “I’ll always stand with workers and working families,” says Kelly Morrison. “It’s never been more important to stand up for workers’ rights.”

Morrison is running for Minnesota’s District 3 seat in the U.S. House of Representatives with the endorsement of the Minnesota AFL-CIO and Minnesota DFL Party.

District 3 includes Minneapolis suburbs in an arc looping west of the city from Coon Rapids on the north to Eden Prairie and Bloomington on the south.

The DFL incumbent, Dean Phillips, won the seat three times beginning in 2018 but chose not to seek re-election — and instead launched a brief run for President. Phillips has endorsed Morrison.

Morrison previously served two terms in the Minnesota House, first elected in 2018, earning  a 100 percent voting score from the Minnesota AFL-CIO on working families issues.

In 2022, after redistricting, Morrison ran for the new District 45 seat in the Minnesota Senate. Over two legislative sessions, she earned a 98 percent voting score from the Minnesota AFL-CIO on working family issues.

Morrison resigned her Minnesota Senate seat in June 2024 to focus on her race for Congress.

Before running for office, Dr. Kelly Morrison worked 20 years as an obstetrician gynecologist and continues to see patients.

Serving in the Minnesota legislature, “I dug into health  care pretty deeply,” Morrison says. She authored bills to cut prescription drug costs and address the opioid crisis.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, sending the issue of reproductive choice to the states, Morrison led Minnesota’s response as the Senate author of the  Reproductive Freedom Defense Act. The bill passed both the Minnesota Senate and House and Governor Tim Walz signed it into law last year.

“This legislation simply keeps patients and providers safe when they receive or provide reproductive health care that is legal in Minnesota,” Morrison said at the time. “What people need right now is care, support and assurances that they are safe.”

In addition to her focus on health care issues, “I voted for a lot of pro-labor and pro-worker bills,” Morrison says. She was the chief author of an early version of a bill to ban non-compete agreements, which restrict a worker’s right to seek employment elsewhere after leaving a job. The bill didn’t pass that year, but a later version did pass in 2023. “It took us a few years but we got it done,” Morrison says.

Morrison initially ran for public office in response to the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

She takes pride in sponsoring common sense legislation that can draw bi-partisan support, passing 90 bills during her six years in the Minnesota legislature.

In the Minnesota Senate, she’s been part of the one-vote pro-labor majority that’s led to historic progress on pro-worker legislation the past two years.

“I’m really proud Minnesota has consistently been voted one of the top ten states for workers in the country,” she says. “We’ve earned that designation.”

In running for Congress, Morrison says, “I’ve been really focused on health care issues and cost-of-living issues — that’s important for working families as well.”

“I’m looking forward to voting for the PRO Act (the Protect the Right to Organize Act) if I am elected to Congress,” Morrison says, “to ensure all Americans can bargain collectively and organize.”

Morrison is a sixth-generation Minnesotan. She attended Jefferson elementary school in Minneapolis and later graduated high school from Blake School. After graduating from Yale College with a B.A. in history, she earned her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University.

“I knew I’d move back to Minnesota because I wanted to have a family and raise my kids here,” she says.

Morrison lives in Deephaven with husband John Willoughby and their three children. Willoughby is a former Army Ranger.

“I and my husband both come from families that value service,” Morrison says.

Website:
kellyforcongress.org