Minnesota Legislature ethics rules face scrutiny amid conflict-of-interest concerns involving Senate president
The ethics standards in the Minnesota Legislature are facing fresh scrutiny after a prominent state senator didn't disclose a former legal client poised to benefit from a bill he sponsored.
DFL Senate President Bobby Joe Champion of Minneapolis brought forward legislation this session earmarking state grant funding for a nonprofit organization led by Rev. Jerry McAfee, for whom Champion provided pro bono work in his private capacity as an attorney in 2022.
Senate Republicans have since filed an ethics complaint against Champion and he has temporarily stepped down from his role as chair of the chamber's ethics subcommittee.
Champion has denied wrongdoing, and the concerns about a potential conflict of interest aren't the first to arise in Minnesota's part-time "citizens' Legislature."
But this has once again put a spotlight on the rules governing lawmakers' conduct at the Capitol and prompted government transparency advocates to double down on calls for reform.
What are the state law and Senate rules on ethics?
Senate rules state that members "must disclose potential conflicts of interest" and then point to state law, which defines a potential conflict of interest as one that would "substantially affect" a public official's own financial interests or those of an "associated business."
But that's where mandatory disclosure, according to the chamber's rules, stops.
A financial interest, defined by law, means "any ownership or control in an asset that has the potential to produce a monetary return." An analysis by nonpartisan Senate staff from nine years ago noted that the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board has previously held that if a legislator does not receive compensation from or own stock in an entity, then it is not considered an "associated business" because there is no financial interest.
In a statement after Republicans filed the ethics complaint against him, Champion underscored that legal distinction.
"Our conflict of interest rules cover situations that directly and financially benefit individual legislators. Because my work in this matter occurred in the past, and was unpaid, there was no potential conflict to disclose," he said.
Annastacia Belladonna-Carrera, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota, a government transparency advocacy organization, said this situation illuminates how the state's laws fall short.
She said Minnesota should consider "comprehensive" reforms seen in other states like California, New York and Washington.
"Power is not always about the money behind it," she told WCCO in an interview Tuesday. "Power is the individuals, the titles, the relationships. We don't have anything in our current laws that address that kind of dynamic, so we find that to be a major issue."
Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, told reporters last week she wouldn't comment on Champion's situation since he sought an advisory opinion from the Senate ethics panel and that was still under consideration.
She said lawmakers should consider taking a closer look at the Legislature's ethics standards, though she suggested it wouldn't be time to make any changes this session.
"I do think the difference between what we understand our rules to be, what we know our rules to be around conflict of interest, and what Minnesotans think about that could fall into the bucket of conflict of interest. There's some gray area between those things," Murphy said.
Belladonna-Carrera said the current enforcement mechanism—an ethics committee made up equally of Republicans and Democrats in each chamber—is insufficient to instill confidence in the process or resolve complaints. The panel can deadlock on an issue along party lines.
"I would argue it doesn't really serve Minnesotans. It doesn't really serve the integrity of the process," she said.
Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, underscored some of the limitations of trying to put guardrails around lawmakers' actions on certain bills, since members — by design — have jobs outside of being elected officials.
"You have teachers voting on education bills. You have contractors voting on bonding bills. But here we have a specific group that a legislator funds money to, and then they have connections, real close ties, to it," Johnson said. "We have some real concerns about that and the allegations that have been brought up."
Proposed changes would broaden the conflict-of-interest definition
Large budget bills in both the House and Senate first included provisions that would create a code of ethics for the legislative branch. The changes, though, are no longer reflected in either proposal after the first iteration of end-of-session negotiations.
The original proposal, though, would greatly expand what's considered a conflict of interest beyond just the financial interest of the public official, as is current law.
The new definition would include, among other things, "use or attempted use of the employee's official position to secure benefits, privileges, exemptions, or advantages for the employee, the employee's immediate family, or an organization with which the employee is associated, that are different from those available to the general public."
The new standards would also apply to anyone who works in the Legislature, like staff for each caucus, not just the lawmakers themselves.
Belladonna-Carrera said Common Cause supports mandatory disclosure of relationships that could influence decision-making, requiring penalties for not doing so and establishing an independent ethics commission to oversee compliance.
