Hot dish 05.08.24

By Ryan Faircloth

A Minnesota state senator who was charged last month with felony first-degree burglary won’t face any legislative consequences beyond being stripped of her committee assignments and removed from DFL caucus meetings — at least for now.

The Minnesota Senate’s ethics panel considered a complaint Tuesday against DFL Sen. Nicole Mitchell, who allegedly broke into her estranged stepmother’s Detroit Lakes home to take some of her late father’s belongings. The hearing was delayed several hours, causing it to last late into the evening when fewer people were watching. Democrats and Republicans on the evenly divided Senate ethics subcommittee could not agree on whether Mitchell violated ethical standards, so they delayed a decision and agreed to meet again about the matter on June 12, or earlier if new evidence emerges.

Mitchell didn’t say a word during the hearing, instead letting her attorney speak for her. Attorney Bruce Ringstrom Jr. repeatedly pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked about specific details of the case and argued Mitchell deserves due process. He accused GOP senators of engaging in a “witch hunt” (sound familiar?) by trying to make a definitive judgment before Mitchell’s criminal case has played out.

“This case belongs in court,” Ringstrom Jr. said. “Then it can be dealt with by this subcommittee.”

A Senate DFL spokesman said the House and Senate haven’t acted on an ethics complaint before a court case has been resolved in at least 40 years.

Even so, Republicans argued that enough details have emerged to suggest Mitchell violated the Senate’s ethical standards.

“Carol Mitchell is the victim. Her sense of safety in her own home was compromised,” Housley said, referring to the stepmother.

Ringstrom Jr. practically cross-examined Housley and GOP Sen. Eric Lucero, questioning the evidence they brought forward. He said that criminal complaints and media reports include allegations, not proven facts, and sometimes they are found incorrect.

DFL Senate President Bobby Joe Champion, who chaired the ethics hearing, also said Republicans only brought forward allegations. Champion suggested that media reports about Mitchell’s arrest may not be accurate and her attorneys could have been misquoted.

“We know media outlets don’t always have to tell the truth,” he said.

That comment didn’t go over well with the press corps. At one point, Champion appeared to cast doubt on a quote that one of Mitchell’s attorneys, Bruce Ringstrom Sr., gave to me last month. That quote was printed verbatim, senator, and I have it on tape.

“I believe she was trying to protect herself from being noticed. I am not going to deny that,” Ringstrom Sr. told me. “She wanted to basically make a check and retrieve a couple of items that she felt were being wrongfully withheld from her despite earlier promises.”

GRUENHAGEN: The ethics subcommittee also took up a year-old complaint against GOP Sen. Glenn Gruenhagen on Tuesday, colleague Rochelle Olson writes. Committee members discussed whether Gruenhagen violated the norms of the Senate by sending to his 66 colleagues a link to a video about gender-affirming surgery.

DFL Sen. Erin Maye Quade filed the complaint against Gruenhagen and argued he should have to take a sensitivity training on LGBTQIA+ matters. Gruenhagen countered that he was just trying to provide research ahead of action on a bill related to gender-affirming care.

The ethics panel decided to come back at 3 p.m. today to decide if anything should be done about it.

UBER: A state House committee advanced legislation setting pay rates for Uber and Lyft drivers on a party-line vote Tuesday, even as both companies threatened to leave Minnesota if they’re required to significantly increase driver pay, colleague Josie Albertson-Grove reports. The bill’s fate remains uncertain as Gov. Tim Walz hasn’t said whether he’d sign it.

But Stephen Cooper, an attorney representing the Minnesota Uber/Lyft Drivers Association, said that rate would be whittled down to about $8 an hour after expenses and taxes. And he said it doesn’t account for time spent waiting for a fare.

“There is not any number that will satisfy Uber and Lyft,” said Eid Ali, president of the drivers association.

Josie shared that Trevor Turner of the Minnesota Council on Disability also testified at the committee hearing. For all the attention paid to how the departure of Uber and Lyft will impact people with disabilities, he noted that neither company makes it very easy for people who use wheelchairs to get a ride.

Turner said Uber and Lyft don’t have to provide equitable access for wheelchair users like taxis do. He applauded a provision in the bill that offered an extra 91 cents per mile to drivers with wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

OMAR: U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, unveiled a resolution Tuesday to censure Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar for comments she made about Jewish students during a recent visit to Columbia University, colleague Sydney Kashiwagi writes.

Sydney got a copy of Bacon’s resolution, which takes aim at those remarks and her “recent hateful comments and history of antisemitism.

“Representative Omar has a long and demonstrated history of hateful rhetoric that plays into the worst antisemitic tropes,” the resolution reads. “Representative Omar’s slanderous comments against Jewish students could inflame violence against the Jewish community.”

Jacklyn Rogers, Omar’s spokeswoman, said the congresswoman “clearly condemned antisemitism and bigotry for all Jewish students.”

TICKETS: Gov. Tim Walz was at First Avenue Tuesday to sign a bill into law regulating ticket selling in Minnesota. Starting next year, ticket sellers, including Ticketmaster, will have to share the total price of admission for concerts and sporting events upfront, colleague Eder Campuzano reports.

The bill also regulates the “speculative market,” where third-party sellers advertise tickets to events even though they haven’t yet acquired the seats. And it requires resellers to tell buyers exactly where they’ll be sitting if an event has assigned seating.

WHERE’S WALZ: Walz will meet with the “Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the United States” this morning. He’ll later make business outreach calls, attend a briefing with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and other governors, and go to a retirement party for Minnesota Pipe Trades Association President David Ybarra.

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