Lori Swanson: Hatch did right by fighting for Minnesotans

11/18/2006

An attorney general must be willing to make some enemies in pursuing justice when the laws have been broken.

Lori Swanson
Published: November 18, 2006

The former HMO consultant who lambasted Mike Hatch for “fighting, not collaborating” (Syl Jones, Nov. 12) fails to appreciate the proper role of an attorney general.

The attorney general’s job is not to make friends or to make nice with those he or she regulates. Rather, an AG, if he or she is worth anything, must be willing to take on friends and make foes to safeguard the public interest.

The South Carolina attorney general undoubtedly made some enemies when he refused to defend the state’s authority to fly the Confederate flag over the State Capitol. The New York AG made some enemies when he exposed corruption on Wall Street. And our attorney general no doubt made some powerful interests mad when he held them accountable for their wrongdoing.

That’s the attorney general’s job.

In thousands of actions big and small over his eight years as AG, Mike Hatch has stood strong for the people of Minnesota. He stood up for patients harassed to tears by hospital debt collectors when their only sin was that they were too poor to pay their hospital bills. He championed the cause of mentally ill children in their darkest hour of need when their HMOs denied coverage for their hospital treatment. He defended the rights of customers whose utility company turned off the heat in the freezing cold just days before Christmas. He fought for homeowners forced to live on park benches after predatory lenders used fraud and deception to steal their American Dream of homeownership.

And, yes, Mike exposed waste, lavish spending, and failed governance by nonprofit HMOs. Mike uncovered outrageous consulting costs at the very HMO where his critic has done work. The consultant refers to the board of directors of the HMO he did work for and takes exception to Mike’s criticism of it. This is the same board that received body massages at board meetings while denying therapeutic massages to policyholders with Parkinson’s disease. (Mike exposed that, too.)

Mike Hatch has followed a pretty simple rule as attorney general: No one is so powerful as to be above the law or so powerless as to be beneath its protection. Mike pursued justice, and he expected outcomes that were fair and just and decent for our citizens. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, justice does not mean staying neutral; rather, justice means fighting to take what’s wrong and make it right. For Mike, the actions he brought as AG were never about the fight or whom he was fighting; they were always about whom he was fighting for: ordinary people who deserved justice when the laws were broken.

I’ll leave political handicapping to the pundits, save one point. The actions Mike brought as AG could have cost him the governorship, but not for the reason the consultant suggests. Rather, it has been reported that late in the campaign some of the same industries that Mike appropriately held accountable as attorney general helped fund a $700,000 war chest through an Alexandria, Va., shadow PAC whose sole purpose was to defeat Mike and elect their preferred candidate.

The prospect of such an outcome never stopped Mike from doing his job. He never asked whom he might alienate when he filed a lawsuit after laws were broken, and he never cared if a lawbreaker was powerful or mighty when taking action was the right thing to do for our citizens. I hope that I always have the courage to follow the same standard when I take office as attorney general.

Lori Swanson is the attorney general-elect of Minnesota.