The Scum at the Top
Commentary on the Rats in Washington
What Hearings? What Scandal?
By Britt Robson
Citypages
Cover Story.
Vol. 24 #1181, pages 20-21
© July 23, 2003
The Republicans see no evil--
and most of the Democrats don't seem to, either
Last Friday night on public TV's Almanac, D.J. Leary--
identified as a "veteran political observer" and "Democrat"--
proclaimed that he'd traveled 1,500 miles around the state
in the previous few days, and not one person had brought up
the breaking Pawlenty scandals. Nary a word, that is, about
the governor's see-no-evil board directorship for a company
connected to sleazy telemarketing practices, or his subsequent
admission that he had received more than $50,000 from his
friend and colleague Elam Baer and possessed no documentary
evidence that he'd done anything to earn it.
"All the people I talk to," gushed Leary, "and they are
outside the metropolitan area, these ladies out there are
wonderful. They want to bring [Pawlenty] home for pie."
His biggest complaint of the night, half-joking, was,
"These people are so cliquish, so clubbish, they never
let a Democrat in to take a piece of the action."
It was left to the Republican in the discussion, Sarah
Janecek, to observe, "The worst part of it is that a
working-class family doesn't understand that kind of money,
and seemingly for work that wasn't done." Realizing what
she'd said, Janecek spun her wheels in reverse--"We don't
know if it was done. Elam says it was done. I believe it
was done"--before helplessly concluding, "Tim Pawlenty is
as honest as the day is long."
If nothing else, the Pawlenty revelations of the past week
have upped the ante on a question that has been brewing for
months now: How blatant does the disconnect between the
governor's folksy persona and his Darwinian behavior have
to become before the DFL summons the spine to take him on?
Pawlenty's supporters have predictably complained that the
Democrats are trying to turn last week's revelations into a
partisan sideshow. But the striking thing is that aside from
Sen. Ellen Anderson's announcement that she has scheduled
hearings early next month, only a handful (including Reps.
Matt Entenza and Tom Rukavina, and Sen. Steve Kelley) of the
party's dozens of elected officials have spoken out on the
subject. One auspiciously silent voice has been that of John
Hottinger, the Senate majority leader who brokered his party's
cave-in on taxes at the end of this spring's legislative
session.
"Are the Democrats having a good time watching the governor
twist in the wind? Yeah. I have to admit I've enjoyed opening
the morning paper every day," says State Senator Linda Higgins
of Minneapolis. "I'm a Democrat, I am not a Republican. Does
that make me partisan? Then call it partisan, I don't care."
But as the chair of the senate's elections subcommittee,
Higgins is in a position to call hearings regarding questions
about Baer's previously undisclosed payments to Pawlenty.
Specifically, did Pawlenty do anything to earn the money?
If not, is that a violation of campaign finance laws? And
if not, do those laws need to be changed? Anderson says that
while she won't rule out the inclusion of those subjects in
her commerce and utilities committee hearings into Pawlenty's
NewTel board membership, they fit Higgins's subcommittee
better. (Another, more narrowly focused avenue of investigation
would ensue if a formal complaint were lodged with the state's
Campaign Finance Board, which as of Sunday hadn't occurred.)
"I haven't had anybody ask to have a hearing and I haven't
thought about it in those terms," Higgins says. "Paying the
living expenses of a friend who is running for governor--is
there anybody who thinks it is any more than that? It would
take a roomful of lawyers to figure out how one would even
report that, if that is a campaign donation that is beyond
what is legal."
As Higgins's tone suggests, Minnesotans shouldn't hold their
breath waiting for a campaign finance investigation. Nearly
five years ago, City Pages reported that State Senator Dallas
Sams, a Democrat from Staples who is still in office, sponsored
legislation in 1997 that appropriated $1 million for the
University of Minnesota College of Agriculture. That same
year, Sams received $12,500 from a university program that
benefited from the appropriation, rerouted through another
company in an apparent attempt to hide the connection. Yet
because Sams was acting as an "independent contractor," he
did not have to list the payment on his financial disclosure
form.
At the time, the head of the Minnesota chapter of Common
Cause described the independent contractor provision as "a
loophole big enough to drive a truck through." The loophole
was a significant reason why in 1999 a watchdog group called
The Center for Public Integrity ranked Minnesota 35th in the
nation "for making basic information on state legislators'
private income, assets, and conflicts of interest available
to the public." And it's why Tim Pawlenty has been able to
make a straight-faced argument that what he did was not
improper.
The DFL response has been so weak that the ubiquitous D.J.
Leary actually told the Pioneer Press last Friday that the
governor's people ought to just shut up. "They're keeping
it alive themselves," he said. "There's nobody on the other
side that's smart enough to do that."
But the real issue isn't smarts; it's political will.
"The independent contractor thing is a ridiculous loophole
that I've been trying to close for years," says Sen. John
Marty (DFL-St.Paul). In the most recent session, Marty
sponsored a bill that would have required full disclosure
of independent contracts and consulting fees by lobbyists
and the firms that hire lobbyists. ("But I couldn't get
it for businesses," he notes, "so I think it was too weak
to fix the problem with Pawlenty.") The bill failed, as
most such measures do. After passing in the Senate, it was
killed by the Republican-controlled House in conference
committee.
"The difficulty with these important reforms is that nobody
wants to do anything unless there is a scandal. It's very
self-serving," Marty says. And, he adds, "the opposition
is bipartisan. These are people you work with from both
parties and they take it very personally."
Given the past relationship between Sams and the U of M--which
was uncovered by the watchdog group Citizens for Fiscal
Responsibility through a university audit--one can understand
why the Democrats might want to chortle privately over news
of Pawlenty's dealings without drawing too much attention
to themselves. This is the party that had an Xcel employee,
Sen. Steve Murphy of Red Wing, helping to author a bill
during the last session that extended Xcel's ability to
store nuclear waste in Minnesota.
If the Democrats are interested, however, Marty does have
one line of inquiry that he believes the party should
undertake. "It is a crime to make or accept a corporate
campaign contribution of 50,000 bucks. If Baer's company
paid Pawlenty for doing nothing, I fail to see how it is
anything but supporting his campaign."
Marty also contests the claim that there's simply no way to
tell whether Pawlenty did any work: "Baer says he can't
disclose any of the work product because of confidentiality
for his clients. But [Pawlenty's] campaign would have a
record of it. I ran for governor once, and although they
give you a little time off every couple of weeks to be with
your family, otherwise you have every minute of your day
booked. If he was really putting in 10-30 hours a month like
he says he was, there would have to be periods in the campaign
book that said, 'legal work,' or 'non-campaign consulting
work.' So if he wants to settle the issue, he will gladly
show the daily schedule for his campaign.
"We should be holding hearings on this," Marty continues. "If
Baer was paying Pawlenty $54,000 and he had a hand in picking
the next commerce commissioner, and he [owns a business]
accused of fraud in seven states, should that be allowed to
happen? Don't we think that's outrageous?"
That's easy for John Marty to say. Unlike Tim Pawlenty, or
more than a few legislators on both sides of the aisle, he
apparently has nothing to hide.
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January 13, 2007