DFL leader vows Senate floor apology

"MN Senate"

03/25/2006

Ethics committee agrees to drop complaint over Johnson’s gay marriage claim

BY RACHEL E. STASSEN-BERGER
Pioneer Press

Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson will apologize Monday on the Senate floor for alleging in January that he had received assurances from state Supreme Court justices about the 1997 law that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

The Democratic-Farmer-Laborite from Willmar also will apologize to the organizers of the pastors group where he made that claim, according to a Friday decision of the Senate ethics committee.

With those apologies, an ethics complaint Republican senators brought against Johnson will be dismissed.

However, the ethics committee decision — and the required apologies — do little to resolve who is telling the truth over the matter and who is not.

Last week, Johnson said he “embellished” when he said he received assurances about the marriage law. But he has maintained he has had a conversation with at least one justice about the marriage law. Friday, his lawyer said there were witnesses to several conversations.

Chief Justice Russell Anderson has adamantly denied that any justice ever had such a conversation with Johnson about the law.

In their complaint, the Republicans claimed that Johnson repeatedly lied about those alleged conversations, violating Minnesota Senate standards of conduct.

The Senate ethics committee met in a closed-door session for two hours to deal with the complaint. A recording of that session was later made publicly available.

The committee, which has two DFL and two GOP members, unanimously voted that if the allegations in the Republicans’ complaint were true, Johnson would have violated standards of Senate conduct.

But the members of the committee made clear that they did not decide whether the allegations were true.

At a January meeting of the New London-Spicer Ministerial Association, Johnson said he knew all of the Supreme Court justices and talked to some of them about the 1997 marriage law, which bans same-sex marriage. The meeting was set up to discuss the proposal to define marriage in the state constitution, something backers say is necessary because the state law could be overturned.

In the meeting, which was secretly recorded, Johnson said he had commitments from justices that they would not “touch” the 1997 law. But last week, he said that was not in fact the case.

He has maintained, however, and continued to maintain Friday, that he had at least one visit with a justice about the law but received no assurance about the fate of the law.

Ellen Sampson, Johnson’s lawyer, said Friday in the ethics committee meeting that Johnson steadfastly maintains that he had such conversations.

“He had conversations with more than one Supreme Court justice. We have no intention, unless forced to do so by subpoena, of naming those justices… In some of the meetings, there were two or more people present,” Sampson said, according to a tape of the meeting.

Johnson said he discussed “gay marriage” with those justices. At least one of those conversations, Sampson said, was in the senator’s office.

But earlier this week, Justice Anderson told reporters that he was “incredulous” when he heard of Johnson’s claim.

“This just never happened,” said Anderson, who talked to all current members of the court and the immediate past chief justice about the matter.

John Kostouros, Supreme Court spokesman, said Friday the court would not comment on the continued differences in the tales from the court and those from Johnson.

Eagan Republican Sen. Mike McGinn, one of the Republicans who brought the complaint, said during the meeting that Johnson would be under a cloud until the dispute about the conversations is completed.

But the ethics committee adjourned without settling where the truth lies.

“We did not resolve that factual conflict,” said Sen. Tom Neuville, R-Northfield one of the members of the committee.

In the closed-door meeting, Neuville said he believed it was possible that Johnson may have been telling the truth in the January meeting. But he also said he doesn’t question what the Supreme Court officials allege.

But to get at that truth would be difficult, committee members said. To find that resolution they may have faced dragging Supreme Court justices, potentially under subpoena, other witnesses and senators to the committee for testimony. That’s something committee members hoped to avoid.

“Sometimes things aren’t resolvable,” Neuville said.

Sen. Wes Skoglund, a Minneapolis DFLer on the committee, said if the committee had not come to equitable agreement it would have pursued such testimony no matter the difficulty.

It is not clear what Johnson will say in his apology. The committee did not dictate any text in its resolution; it only requires the senator to make a “public apology on the floor of the Senate to the Senate and his constituents.”

Johnson pledged he would not question the motives of the senators who brought the complaint in his apology.

“My intent would be a straightforward apology to the Senate and perhaps something about how I, along with the body, have learned a lesson,” Johnson told the committee members.

Committee chairman Sen. Jim Metzen, like those who brought the complaint, said the ethics process worked but it was not an easy one.

“These are friends on both sides of the aisle. It is not a fun job for any of us. Particularly…when it involves friendship and it involves the Supreme Court,” said Metzen, a South St. Paul Democrat who has been in the Legislature since 1974.

In the committee and afterwards, Johnson said he agreed to the apology but denied there was probable cause to the complaint and said he was not guilty of any violation of Senate conduct rules.

“I will apologize on Monday, and we move on,” Johnson said after the committee hearing.
The two Republicans who filed the complaint, McGinn and Sen. Claire Robling of Jordan — said they were prepared to move on after the Johnson apologizes.