Kelly Moller (born February 2, 1972) is an American politician serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2019. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Moller represents District 40A in the north-central Twin Cities metropolitan area, which includes the cities of Mounds View and Shoreview and parts of Ramsey County, Minnesota.^[1][2]

Early life, education, and career

Moller attended the University of Notre Dame, graduating with a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing and later Hamline University School of Law, graduating with a Juris Doctor.^[1]

Moller worked as a staff attorney in the Minnesota Attorney General's Office for a decade, is a victim rights activist, and works as an assistant attorney for Hennepin County, Minnesota. She served on the Shoreview City Public Safety Committee.^[1][3]

Minnesota House of Representatives

Moller was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2018 and has been reelected every two years since. She defeated one-term Republican incumbent Randy Jessup.^[1]

Moller chairs the Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee and the Ethics Committee. She sits on the Judiciary Finance and Civil Law, Rules and Legislative Administration, and Ways and Means Committees. She served as vice chair of the Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee from 2021 to 2022.^[1]

Political positions

Public safety

As Public Safety chair, Moller has supported offering more resources for police recruitment and retention as well as funding for community crime and violence prevention.^[4][5][6] She has said that the state's criminal justice system has done "a pretty bad job" at rehabilitation.^[7] After the police shooting of Daunte Wright, Moller supported legislation to limit police powers during traffic stops, including banning officers from pulling drivers over for having tinted windows, outdated tabs, or loud mufflers.^[8][9][10]

Moller supports "red flag laws", also known as extreme risk protection orders, and supported efforts to compile a database of mass shootings in the United States.^[11][12] In response to rising car thefts, she wrote a bill that would allow police departments to track stolen vehicles for 24 hours without first getting consent from owners.^[13][14] She authored changes to civil forfeiture laws for cases ending forfeitures worth less than $1,500 in most cases.^[15]

Sexual harassment and assault laws

Moller has supported updating and strengthening Minnesota's sexual assault and harassment laws, citing testimony from survivors about problems with the current system.^[16][17][18] She supported legislation eliminating the "severe or pervasive" standard for determining whether harassment creates a hostile working environment.^[19][20]

In 2021, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that a person who is sexually assaulted while intoxicated is not considered "mentally incapacitated" if they consumed the substance voluntarily.^[21] Moller introduced a bill that would amend the relevant statute to include victims such as those in the case the court ruled on, and said it was "an example of victim blaming".^{[21][22][23][24]} The bill gained bipartisan support and passed later that year.^[25]

Moller authored bipartisan legislation to require law-enforcement agencies to follow a state-issued policy on how to best investigate sexual assault cases.^[26] She also introduced a bill to form a working group, including representatives from victim coalitions, to examine and rewrite criminal sexual conduct laws.^[26][27] The Peace Officers Standards and Training (POST) Board adopted similar policies, and Moller authored a bill requiring departments to follow the guidance, with officers that failed facing consequences including losing their police officer's license.^[28][29][30] Many of the working group's recommendations were implemented in a bipartisan bill passed in 2021.^[25][31]

Moller called Minneapolis's backlog of untested rape kits "unacceptable" and pledged to work to get them tested, and supported a state supreme court ruling protecting communications between victims and sexual assault counselors.^[32][33] She authored legislation to repeal a law from Minnesota's territorial days that criminalized adultery that only applied to women, not men.^[34]

In response to multiple reported instances of sexual harassment at the Capitol by legislators and lobbyists, Moller sponsored a bill to broaden what qualifies as harassment which passed the House but failed to move forward in the Republican-controlled Senate.^[35] She also authored legislation to require the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to investigate allegations of sexual assault by officers.^[36][37]

Other political positions

Moller authored legislation to increase transparency around ticket prices, requiring upfront pricing and regulating ticket resellers. She said the legislation, H.F. 1989, was inspired by issues experienced during the sale of tickets on Ticketmaster for Taylor Swift's "Eras" Tour in 2023.^[38]

Electoral history

Personal life

Moller and her husband, Kevin, have two children. She resides in Shoreview, Minnesota.^[1]