Entenza takes hits from all sides

07/18/2006

Candidate faces new challenger, criticism

BY PATRICK SWEENEY
Pioneer Press

Matt Entenza, the embattled Democratic candidate for Minnesota attorney general, drew fire Monday from both inside and outside his party: He got a new DFL primary opponent, and his Republican opponent harshly accused him of lying and lacking integrity.

The new opponent is Jennifer Mattson, a 29-year-old St. Paul lawyer who wrote an open letter to Entenza stating: “Events have spun out of your control and have compromised your candidacy.”

Mattson referred both to Entenza’s handling of recent revelations that he hired a Chicago political research firm a year ago to investigate DFL gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch, and to pending state and federal investigations of the company that employs Entenza’s wife.

Today is the deadline for candidates to file nominating papers, and it was not clear Monday whether any other Democrat would challenge Entenza. It was clear, however, that a number of big-name Democratic lawyers have been urged by people within their party to consider running against Entenza, a state House member.

The attack against Entenza by Jeff Johnson, his Republican opponent, was unusual even for a high-stakes political campaign. Johnson accused Entenza of repeatedly lying about the investigation of Hatch.

“I don’t think Matt Entenza has the integrity necessary to serve as attorney general, and I recognize that as a very strong statement,” Johnson said during a news conference.

Entenza did not personally respond to either Mattson or Johnson. Instead, his campaign manager, John Van Hecke, issued two written statements. One accused Mattson of “viciously” and unjustifiably attacking Entenza’s wife. The other blasted Johnson’s credentials and called on him to reveal his corporate legal clients.

“Jeffrey Johnson doesn’t measure up to Matt Entenza,” Van Hecke said. “He’s attacking Matt to hide his own abysmal consumer and family privacy protection track record.”

In addition to criticism by Mattson and Johnson, Entenza was the target of an 11-page package of documents faxed anonymously to Capitol reporters.

The documents, sent from a Kinko’s copy shop, included copies of canceled checks through which Entenza’s wife, Lois Quam, gave $55,000 to two South Dakota political action committees in early 2003. The documents purport to show that much of the $55,000 went through the PACs to the South Dakota Democratic Party, then to the Minnesota DFL Party and eventually to the Minnesota House DFL campaign committee that Entenza led. The document also alleged that Quam donated another $45,000 to a South Dakota Democratic House campaign committee.

In December 2004, Entenza acknowledged that he and Quam made about $600,000 in contributions to various campaigns during the two years leading up to the 2004 election. He apparently did not include the $55,000 Quam gave to the South Dakota committees.

But it appeared, at least initially, that while the donations were unusual there was nothing illegal about them or the route the money allegedly took to the House Democratic campaign.

“It’s a lot of paper shuffling, and I can’t see a reason to do it,” said Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a Helena, Mont., campaign watchdog group.

But Bender said the alleged transactions did not appear to be unlawful. He acknowledged he was not an expert on either Minnesota or South Dakota campaign laws, but said he believed Quam legally could have given the $55,000 directly to the Minnesota House campaign committee, as she and Entenza did with other contributions.

A letter that accompanied the anonymous documents alleged that Quam gave money in the way she did so Minnesota media would have difficulty tracing it.

In response to the anonymous documents, Entenza issued a mildly worded statement that said unnamed opponents had “tried to land a few hits” on him. Van Hecke, who said he could not confirm that the copies of the canceled checks were genuine, was harsher in his criticism of the faxed documents.

Van Hecke portrayed the anonymous fax as part of an effort by someone — he wouldn’t speculate whether it was a Democrat or a Republican — to drive Entenza out of the campaign. “I think it’s clearly somebody who doesn’t want us in the race,” Van Hecke said.

Brian Melendez, the DFL state chairman, said he believed, but was not 100 percent certain, that some Democrats were trying to recruit a DFL candidate to wage a primary campaign against Entenza.

Last week, former U.S. Rep. Bill Luther acknowledged that Hatch, the current attorney general who has questioned Entenza’s commitment to policing big health care companies, had recently suggested that Luther run against Entenza. On Monday, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner said she had been urged to run against Entenza by people she would not identify.

Gaertner said she declined.

Mattson, the Democrat who filed Monday to challenge Entenza, is the granddaughter of a state attorney general and daughter of Bob Mattson, a former state auditor and state treasurer. For a time, her father continued to serve as state treasurer after moving to Florida to operate a barbecue restaurant.

In 1998, she challenged DFL endorsee Edwina Garcia in a campaign for secretary of state and lost by a more than 2-to-1 ratio.

In her open letter to Entenza, Mattson questioned how Entenza could avoid a conflict of interest involving Hatch’s effort to have the state join federal investigations of UnitedHealth Group, a Minnetonka-based insurer that employs Quam as a top executive. The Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating hundreds of millions of dollars in stock options the company gave to many employees, including Quam. Hatch is fighting UnitedHealth in court to obtain access to company documents.

Johnson, the Republican candidate for attorney general, said Monday that he decided to directly question Entenza’s integrity after reviewing a transcript of one of two long conference calls Entenza had with reporters last week about his hiring of the Chicago firm to investigate Hatch in early 2005.

Johnson accused Entenza of a “string of falsehoods” in the explanations he has offered for the Hatch probe.

Entenza said Thursday the investigation involved only obtaining some “boring” public records from Hatch’s staff. He denied there was any political purpose behind the request.

Hours later, Entenza acknowledged the Chicago firm conducted a wider probe of Hatch, including checking up on a parking ticket Hatch got in 2003. Entenza denied he ordered the wider investigation, approved of it or even knew about it until Thursday. But he apologized to Hatch.

Entenza said several times last week that he paid only a few hundred dollars for the investigation he sought, but he has provided no documentation for the expenditure.

“I don’t think anybody believes he spent $200 on that, as he kept reiterating,” Johnson said.