Latest political bickering focuses on who typed what, and where

08/27/2005

Conrad Defiebre,
Star Tribune


A GOP legislator’s official news release finds its way to her congressional campaign website. DFL websites are found to contain material from computers at public schools and a private law firm.

Do such revelations, and others like them, represent an outbreak of political lawlessness in a state noted for aboveboard campaigning? Or are they a series of minor slipups by busy volunteer activists who are being outed in Minnesota’s hottest new partisan blood sport?

A flurry of allegations have been exchanged in recent weeks, generally via e-mail or web logs, accusing political activists in both major parties of preparing political materials on computers where they work.

It is illegal under Minnesota law to use public resources for partisan purposes, and political work on corporate computers could, if officially sanctioned, constitute an illegal contribution.

The accusations typically follow a search of the “properties” field of Microsoft Word documents that is supposed to show where they were created.

It took DFLer Jeffrey Arnold of St. Paul all of two minutes to get into the cyber-gotcha game last week after he learned of the case that launched the recent round of allegations.

Arnold fired up an advanced Google search and quickly hit on a Goodhue County Republican website with a page about how to donate money that originated at the Donaldson Co. of Minneapolis.

“OK, I found one,” Arnold said. “I’m sure there’s more. But haven’t we got anything better to talk about? This all seems kind of silly.”

Minnesota campaign law erects a solid wall between public and corporate resources on one hand and political activity on the other. Yet it remains murky whether any of the recently alleged infractions would rise to the level of even misdemeanor charges or civil penalties.

State campaign watchdogs, for example, don’t count an activist’s use of a home computer as an in-kind contribution to candidates or parties. And use of any computer to draft a document would likely fall well below the $20 value threshold for reporting political contributions, said Jeanne Olson, executive director of the state Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.

In addition, there would be no wrongdoing at all if a public or corporate entity was paid whatever value is attached to the use of its computer for a political purpose.

Some campaign law experts suggest that any issues raised by the recent spate of revelations are between employees and employers, rather than a concern for the public interest at large.

But none of those provisos are to be found in the superheated political blogosphere that has spawned most of the finger-pointing.

The anonymous website Minnesota Democrats Exposed, which kicked off the current hostilities with a revelation that a DFL fundraising letter was created on a computer at the Minneapolis city attorney’s office, has called for City Attorney Jay Heffern and his deputy, Peter Ginder, to be fired for allegedly covering up the matter.

Ginder said Thursday that an investigation continues on Lois Conroy, an assistant city attorney and chairwoman of the Minneapolis DFL. Conroy has admitted working on the letter after hours at her office.

False trails?

Minnesota Democrats Exposed, or MDE, as it styles itself, also has found that the computer trails that the partisan sleuths have dug up aren’t always reliable evidence.

State Senate District 63 DFLers have “changed the document properties of documents posted on their website to falsely claim they were created by Minnesota Democrats Exposed,” MDE says in a recent web posting.

David Weinlick, District 63 DFL chairman, said the switch was a joke. “We thought it was funny,” he said. Weinlick, a student at the University of Minnesota, also said he isn’t sure why some Word documents on the district web site originally showed the “author” as “U of M.” He added: “Maybe I did it in a computer lab there.”

MDE (http://www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com) also alleged that a 5th Congressional District DFL website contained a file created at the University of Minnesota, where 5th District DFL secretary Laura Sayles is coordinator of the Institute for Global Studies.

Contacted on Wednesday, Sayles declined to comment, adding: “I’m actually at work right now.”

A similar problem confronted Republican blog contributor Jerry Plagge of Richfield. He had e-mailed a Star Tribune reporter questioning Conroy’s explanation of her case, then asked that the message be sent back.

Why? He had sent it from his work computer at C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., a trucking and transportation company in Eden Prairie.

“I intended to send the message from my home or personal mailbox,” he said. “Note the irony of me using work e-mail ... even if there is a big difference between a public position and a private company like mine.”

‘Perfectly legal’

Where one works does make a difference. If a corporation authorized the use of its assets for political purposes, it could incur a $40,000 fine and the loss of its right to do business in Minnesota. But that doesn’t apply to all private enterprise.

For example, documents drafted at the Minneapolis law firm of Faegre & Benson that turned up on the state DFL Party website are “perfectly legal” because the firm is a partnership, not a corporation, said DFL spokesman Bill Amberg.

DFL state chair Brian Melendez is a partner at Faegre, but the documents may have come from Rick Nelson, another DFL activist at the firm, Amberg said. Regardless, he added, “there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s no different than working on a home computer.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, was targeted by a blog devoted solely to her candidacy for Congress in the 6th District—dumpbachmann.blogspot.com.

Blogster Eva Young found a news release produced last week by Bachmann’s legislative office on her candidate website, with a tagline saying it was “prepared and paid for by Bachmann for Congress.”

“It must be a mistake,” Bachmann said. “I don’t know what happened.” She said she would order the disclaimer removed.

And the Donaldson Co.-Goodhue County GOP connection? Donaldson employee Chris Hauschildt of Red Wing is listed as the contact person on the party website. He said he hasn’t altered the site in more than a year and doesn’t remember doing any party work at his job.

“I might have done that,” he eventually acknowledged. “But if I did, it was on my own time.”