Auditor: Ritchie Did Not Misuse State Resources. But Someone Did.

Well, the Legislative Auditor's report on accusations that Secretary of State Mark Ritchie misused his office is out today. It concludes:

• 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.
• 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.

Minnesota Democrats Exposed, which has been shrieking about this for months already has five posts up on the subject. Michael Brodkorb will no doubt continue parsing the report from beginning to end, hoping to milk this until he can manufacture another faux outrage.

Meanwhile, we can thank him and his GOP cronies for this use of state resources that actually did cost taxpayers real money — just to confirm that Ritchie was too slow to answer their accusations.

Oddly, since Ritchie has got to be MDE's greatest obsession after Al Franken, Brodkorb's blog tags his Ritchie posts under "Uncategorized." [His "MDE File" on Ritchie only shows three posts — less than half a day's hatchet work for Brodkorb.]

Even Mitch Berg merits his own category, though I didn't find an MDE link to this post:

Jim Nobles — the state’s legislative auditor — is known as a person of scrupulous integrity; his office is no partisan hacketeria.

And Nobles has spoken.

Comments

[Ollie Ox]

A very good point.

It looks like nuisance complaints will be the order of the day with this bunch of bananas.

[MNObserver]

But they'll be able to proclaim in their headlines that Mark Ritchie is "the subject of numerous complaints about his ethical behavior" as the election draws near.

[Ollie Ox]

And who are "they" and who will listen, other than the Star Tribune? Check out the AP report an Scott Wente's dispatch for the Forum papers. It's the stuff Ron Carey's cherrypicking can't erase.

[MNObserver]

They = those who continue to make these never-ending complaints for the simple purpose of highlighting the number of them.

As the proponents of tort reform are so fond of saying, anyone can file a complaint.

[MBerg]

As the proponents of tort reform are so fond of saying, anyone can file a complaint.

Yes, and if "anyone" does it speciously enough, and often enough, it'll backfire - especially given the degree to which the regional media is an organ of the DFL.

I don't know that I expect Mark Ritchie to be a crook; given his background, I do know that I expect at least unconscious bias in his actions - I suspect it explains this episode. If this episode does nothing but show public "servants" that there are ten thousand people scrutinizing everything they do, so be extra-careful about all that "ethics" stuff, it's a win for everyone.

In theory, DFLers should agree with that.

[Charlie Quimby]

I wish it were so. Unfortunately, this episode shows that not only are people out there scrutinizing everything, there are people devoted to exploiting every little thing for partisan political advantage.

Scrutiny is good, and calling people out is fair. But it cost the taxpayers a lot to reiterate the lesson that it's dumb to dissemble in the face of a thinly based attack.

[Charlie Quimby]

Oh, and I hope we'll be spared LIBERAL BLOGGER SAYS RITCHIE WAS DUMB TO DISSEMBLE.

[Mitch Berg]

"a thinly based attack"

Well, to be fair (to us), Watergate started out as pretty thin gruel, too.

"and I hope we'll be spared LIBERAL BLOGGER SAYS RITCHIE WAS DUMB TO DISSEMBLE."

I don't use caps, anyway. Beyond that, no guarantees.

[Charlie Quimby]

Of course, it wasn't you I WAS REFERRING TO, but I'll thank the Lord for small cap favors.