On today’s Pig’s Eye Podcast, we talk about the puzzling case of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and his use of a government e-mail list for political purposes. You can listen to the podcast here.

First, a recap: At the outset, the DFLer said he didn’t know how his campaign got hold of his office e-mail list, which the campaign used to send out a newsletter that asked for political contributions. Subsequently, Ritchie said that he gave his campaign the office list. Because of these contradictory explanations, the state Legislative Auditor now wants to question Ritchie under oath.

Remember, Ritchie campaigned on a promise that he would remove politics from the secretary of state’s office, which administers elections among other duties. So he set a Ceasar’s wife standard.

You can debate how grievous his use of the e-mail list was to begin with, but he clearly has compounded the problem by giving conflicting answers about his own role in the matter.

Here are some of the stories Star Tribune reporter Mark Brunswick has written:
The first story, when the allegations initially surfaced.
The text of the e-mail that led to the complaints.
The article when Ritchie changes his story.
The story about a not-very-happy legislative auditor.

What do you think? How big a deal was it for Ritchie to use his office e-mail list to distribute his political newsletter? How serious is it that he gave conflicting explanations? Finally, what should be done about this, if anything?

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has some explaining to do, or so it seems. He was elected on the promise that he would depoliticize the office and restore voter confidence in the office’s integrity and impartiality.

Now, the DFLer is under fire for allegedly using his public office to supply his political machine with names and contact information to raise money for his campaign.

Mark Ritchie

The allegation comes from officials of two right-leaning organizations and was detailed Monday on the Minnesota Democrats Exposed blog, followed promptly by two Republican legislators calling for an investigation. Here’s our story about the controversy.

The complainants say that they participated in a “Civic Education” program run by Ritchie’s secretary of state office, and were asked to supply their e-mail addresses to the office. That was in April. Last week, they received an e-mail solicitation from Ritchie’s campaign.

Apparently, the contact info acquired by his taxpayer-funded office ended up in the hands of his political fundraising operation.

Ritchie says he did not authorize the use of the list for political purposes, and said he doesn’t know how it happened. But he goes on to say that the names and e-mail addresses are public information, available to anyone, including political campaigns.

Indeed, Minnesota’s data practices law says that government data is considered to be public, unless it is specifically exempted from the law.

So this information might, in fact, be public information, and would have to be provided to political campaigns if they request it.

Did that happen? Did Ritchie’s campaign request the information from Ritchie’s office? If so, how did Ritchie’s campaign know to ask for this list? Or did it submit a broad request for all names and contact info held by the office?

If that’s the case, even if it’s perfectly legal, wouldn’t it be prudent for Ritchie’s campaign to not ask for such information — to avoid the perception that he’s using his office resources — taxpayer resources — to aid his campaign?