A GOP senate leader on Wednesday renewed calls to hear an ethics complaint against state Sen. Jeff Hayden, a Minneapolis DFLer who sat on the board of a now-defunct nonprofit.
Hayden was a board member of Community Action of Minneapolis (CAM), a nonprofit that provided services to low-income communities. Its leader, former CEO Bill Davis, and his son, Jordan, were recently convicted in federal court of fraud, theft, as well as conspiracy to misuse taxpayer funds.
The 2014 complaint isn't new, but Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, wants a Senate committee to revisit the topic in light of the recent federal convictions. Over the course of two previous hearings, senators failed to settle questions over the ethics charges. They postponed deliberations until state agencies finished their investigations.
He said DFL leaders, including Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman, should have more aggressively investigated CAM. He also suggested Hayden's repayment of expenditures was an admission of guilt, a charge Hayden denied.
"There has been a cloud of suspicion hanging over Sen. Hayden and the Minnesota Senate for almost two years," Hann said in a letter to Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul. "That cloud of suspicion now also hangs over Commissioner Rothman and the DOC. Moreover, as voters head to the polls this November, Sen. Hayden's constituents deserve to know if he was involved in unethical, and potentially illegal, activity as a board member of Community Action of Minneapolis."
Pappas, chairwoman of the ethics committee, through a spokeswoman declined to comment.
Hayden said Hann's letter is politically motivated, arguing that he and his wife made no admission of guilt when they repaid nearly $3,000 in expenditures found to be improper by a court-appointed receiver.
Hayden also said the elder Davis had deceived not only taxpayers, but members of the board as well.
"This was all on his own essentially," Hayden said.
