Topic of the day: Ellison answers to constituents, not House Ethics Committee

Last update: July 24, 2009 - 4:58 PM

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U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison represents the kind of arrogance we have come to expect from Washington politicians. He claims his trip that was paid for by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota is no one's business because MAS-MN is not a lobbying group. However, it is a nonprofit that takes government money and it just paid for a U.S. congressman to take a personal trip. Any normal person would consider that to be lobbying. I believe we do have a right to ask our congressman who is giving him money and why. I also think we have a right to know that he properly reported the trip to the IRS and paid taxes on the amount. I don't care what the House Ethics Committee does or does not say. I care about the ethics of our elected official. And he should too.

STEVE SHERWOOD, MINNETONKA

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I am amazed that your July 22 story on Keith Ellison's pilgrimage to Mecca was important enough to make the front page yet never goes further than suggestions and insinuations of wrongdoing. Reasonable people, including the Ethics Committee itself, disagree that this was a gift. Which means the only remaining factor making this remotely newsworthy is the fact that it was paid for "by a local Islamic nonprofit." Take "Islamic" out of that sentence and would you really have a story anyone would read? After all, "Christian nonprofit paid for Smith Pilgrimage to Bethlehem" doesn't have the same front-page ring to it, does it?

VLADIMIR DOUHOVNIKOFF, ALEXANDRIA, MINN.

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What Keith Ellison fails to grasp in his rather evasive letter to the editor (July 23) is that he isn't employed by some obscure House Ethics Committee, he works for the residents of the Fifth Congressional District and the people of Minnesota and it's their judgments he must be concerned about. No House panel has the ability to relieve the congressman of the obligations he owes to all of us. Ellison is also incorrect in claiming that his right to privacy allows him to accept expensive gifts from his constituents and to subsequently withhold information concerning such gifts from the public. The proper course for the congressman is breathtakingly clear. He should make complete disclosures concerning his foreign trip he has already taken, and he should resolve not to accept such gifts again.

JON MINERS, CRYSTAL

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