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PIONEER PRESS EDITORIAL: REPUBLICANS WHO VOICED CONCERNS ABOUT RITCHIE’S CONDUCT “HAVE PERFORMED A VALUABLE SERVICE”
By Michael B. Brodkorb | January 9, 2008
"It's also fair to say that people who sign up at a state-sponsored event should not then receive campaign material from the elected official who organized the event. And if the 'Republican operatives' helped make that clear - not just for Ritchie, but for every other politician at the Capitol - they have performed a valuable service." Source: Pioneer Press, January 9, 2008
Click here for the complete editorial.
I completely agree. It took two Republicans, John Tomczak and Mark Giga, to keep partisan politics out of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's office. Ritchie couldn't keep his promise to be a "non-partisan" secretary of state.
Topics: Mark Ritchie |












January 9th, 2008 at 11:26 am
[...] Michael B. Brodkorb placed an interesting blog post on PIONEER PRESS EDITORIAL: REPUBLICANS WHO VOICED CONCERNS ABOUT …Here’s a brief overview [...]
January 9th, 2008 at 11:34 am
[...] As Michael notes, this might just be as much a victory for the notion of scrutiny as for Ritchie’s ethics. And the Strib - as in-the-bag for the DFL as any official DFL organ - isn’t especially pleased with the Secretary of State, either. [...]
January 9th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
So did anyone answer the question? Did Ritchie lie, or not?
January 9th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Drew:
I say that the auditor pointing that Ritchie didn’t come forward immedaitely and had to be put under oath was a sign that Ritchie lied at one time. The auditor was probably being polite since the list was public information in his opinion and can be taken anyway.
I want to know though did Ritchies have to fill out a request and pay for it. Isn’t that a normal request to get a list?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
January 9th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I would like to send a note to everyone who bought a fishing or hunting license last year. If you have that one please forward it to me, free of charge of course. Name, address, phone and email if possible.
This is great news. It’s all public all the time so any of us can get it for free and do whatever we want with it! Woohoo!
January 9th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
How would the Ritchie Listgate fiasco have been handled if the SOS had been a republican?
January 9th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
front page news until the SOS. Hearings at every single committee trying to show they want the SOS held accountable. Everything that didn’t happen in this case.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
January 9th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Ritchie calls a press conference to celebrate not being charged with anything and attacks those who objected to his sleazy self-serving tactics…..meanwhile back at the ranch a couple of lowly DVS clerks get fired for a little harmess snooping of public information…Guess it’s nice to be the SOS…..
January 9th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
A little harmless snooping huh? Unless it happens to be your information that’s compromised. What are you, a freakin’ nazi?
January 9th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Buck, are you saying that only a Nazi would misuse information given to the government for one’s own personal gain?
I agree.
January 9th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Let’s go easy on the Nazi references.
January 10th, 2008 at 8:20 am
To be consistent with Ritchie the DVS employees should not be disciplined. They snooped for entertainment not for personal financial gain like Ritchie did.
In fact, to be consistent with Ritchie, every single government employee should be able to freely use public information for his or her personal gain as Ritchie did. A DNR guy with a side job selling fishing poles can simply take home the fishing license file. A court employee want to sell radar detectors to speeders?…No problem, just download the list from the database.
Got a spouse investing in real estate?…heck, just grab the foreclosure list….all on the taxpayers time…just like Ritchie did. At least the DVS guys snooped on their own time, following Noble’s logic, they should have been able to do it at work like Ritchie did.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:24 am
buck, welcome to “Minnesota Democrats Exposed – moron.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:25 am
buck, welcome to “Minnesota Democrats Exposed – moron.