‘Code of integrity’ proposed for Secretary of State

08/31/2005

Pat Doyle,
Star Tribune
August 31, 2005

A DFL candidate for Secretary of State called Tuesday for a “code of integrity” that would bar formal partisan activity by the office, but the Republican incumbent countered that she has always followed such ethical standards.

Christian Sande, a Minneapolis attorney, said a code was needed “to avoid any perception of favoritism” by the office. He proposed prohibiting the Secretary of State and employees of the office’s elections division from serving as officers or campaign committee members for any candidate whose election they might oversee. The code also would bar employees of the division from being officers in a political party except as delegates to a party convention.

Sande acknowledged that he had no evidence that Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer had done anything that would have violated his proposed rules. But he said the proposal would prevent her and others in the elections division from holding key positions in future campaigns.

At a news conference, Sande referred to a “rumor” that Kiffmeyer served as co-chairwoman for the Bush campaign in Minnesota while secretary of state. “I don’t know that that’s true,” he said.

Kiffmeyer accused Sande of spreading “lies” and “going to promote a code of integrity, and then you use rumors to base your press release on.”

She denied being an officer in the Bush campaign, noting she had appeared once at a campaign function for Laura Bush in early 2004.

“There was a little bit of confusion whether this was an official or campaign function,” Kiffmeyer said of the event. “I appeared with Mrs. Bush, and I think it was more clearly a campaign function. I instructed my staff after that ... the first question you ask, ‘Is this official business?’ And if it’s official business, we proceed, and if it’s not, we don’t.”

“That is the closest over the seven years that I’ve been in office, the closest I’ve come to ever doing anything like that,” she said. Kiffmeyer said she and her staff members already abide by the kind of restrictions proposed by Sande.