« BEMIDJI PIONEER EDITORIAL BLASTS SECRETARY OF STATE RITCHIE | Home | MN GOP CHAIRMAN RON CAREY: “FRANKEN LIES ABOUT PAST ATTACKS” »
PIONEER PRESS EDITORIAL BLASTS SECRETARY OF STATE RITCHIE
By Michael B. Brodkorb | November 28, 2007
"Ritchie hosted a meeting in April of members of a variety of interest groups, hoping to form a state council on civic engagement. Participants received follow-up e-mails, and a directory was created of the participants. In October, two Republican activists who had attended the meeting received what they called
It invited them to a Ritchie fundraiser and said they could donate to his campaign on-line. (Nigerian riches were not mentioned.) The activists raised heck. They complained to Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles, who is now on the case.
Ritchie was asked about the co-mingled lists by a reporter for the Star-Tribune. The reporter quoted him saying initially that the civic engagement list was public information, available to anyone; and later saying he had given the list to his campaign. Both could be true. But it creates an impression that he wasn't forthcoming.
Nobles said this week he finds this discrepancy in the two answers 'disturbing' and that he will likely take further testimony from Ritchie's office under oath. Ritchie's office issued a statement this week saying he 'takes this matter very seriously' and 'welcomes the extra attention being given by the legislative auditor.' We do, too.
We had no beef with Kiffmeyer over the quality of Minnesota's elections, but Ritchie certainly did. We endorsed him and said in this space that we will 'hold Ritchie accountable to his promise to run his office as a 'nonpartisan.' ' This e-mail co-mingling appears to be different from what he promised. It smacks of an old Capitol trick of blurring the line between politicking and governing." Source: Pioneer Press, November 27, 2007
Click here for the complete editorial.
Tags: Uncategorized
Topics: Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
5 Responses to “PIONEER PRESS EDITORIAL BLASTS SECRETARY OF STATE RITCHIE”
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
November 28th, 2007 at 10:50 AM
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptPIONEER PRESS EDITORIAL BLASTS SECRETARY OF STATE RITCHIE November 28, 2007 10:05 am “Ritchie hosted a meeting in April of members of a variety of interest groups, hoping to form a state council on civic engagement. Participants received follow-up e-mails, and a directory was created of the participants. In October, two Republican activists who had attended the meeting received what they called It invited them to a Ritchie fundraiser and said they could donate to his campaign on-line. (Nig [...]
November 28th, 2007 at 11:49 AM
The Legislative Auditor should also takes a look at Becky Otto and her refusal to audit the Secretary of State.
November 28th, 2007 at 10:31 PM
I think you’re missing the really big story here: Ritchie is so unpopular that he couldn’t find a boot licking sycophant to take the fall for him anywhere in the department.
I mean, really, Kerry got his speech writer to at least cover for him when he made that awful, twisted joke. You’d think Ritchie could have at least found a loyal DFL hack to take the bullet for him.
November 28th, 2007 at 11:28 PM
Lawrence:
I have said this in earlier post and I’ll say it again. I wrote the auditor and a person responded that day (unlike Ritchie and my state reps). They explained that the state auditor’s job was to audit the books of cities, school boards, and other local governments. They told me to make my complaint to the legislative auditor and even gave me his email address.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
November 29th, 2007 at 7:49 AM
If the list is “Public Information” surely Ritchie will have no problem giving MDE the list in question.
Also Ritchie would have no problem with that list being published on MDE or at another news outlet.