The legislative auditor - Jim Noble - has concluded after interviewing Mark Ritchie and several of his employees that he did not misuse his office in using public data for fund-raising emails.
- Secretary of State Mark Ritchie did not misuse state resources when he organized civic education events and collected contact information from the participants. The events were appropriate activities of the Secretary of State’s office, and the contact information fulfilled a public purpose.
- Secretary of State Mark Ritchie did not violate Minnesota law when he provided the contact information to his campaign since the information is “public data” under Minnesota law.
And apparently he’s just a little above the law…:
- Secretary of State Mark Ritchie did not fulfill his legal obligation to make a full and timely response to a request for information from the Legislative Auditor.
So. That’s that.
As Michael notes, this might just be as much a victory for the notion of scrutiny as for Ritchie’s ethics. And the Strib - as in-the-bag for the DFL as any official DFL organ - isn’t especially pleased with the Secretary of State, either.
But my favorite response is the always-apoplectic “Phoenix Woman” - AKA “Ms. Furious” - from Mercury Rising, who tries to spin the news as a win for Ritchie. Note, Ms. Woman: being proven not to be corrupt is something a good SoS might file under “damnation by faint praise”.
Oh, and when Ms. Woman “writes”:
It’s going to be awfully tough for Mitch Berg to accuse State Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles of being a DFL hack, since, as Charlie of Across the Great Divide reminds us, Mitch is already on record with the opposite opinion:
Fascinating bit of “logic”, since I never even thought about criticizing Mr. Nobles, and one didn’t have to go to Charlie Quimby to know that.
Which merely proves that if Phoenix Woman didn’t have that whole “purple-faced anonymous apoplectic ranting” thing going, she’d have precious little to write about at all. On the other hand, straw men may be her only social circle.
All ya had to do was ask, toots.
