Sen. Mitchell declines to testify before ethics panel as it defers decision on burglary arrest
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Updated: 10:04 p.m.
Minnesota Senate ethics proceedings against Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell won’t resume until after a June court hearing in her felony burglary case unless more substantive information surfaces sooner, members of the committee weighing her standing decided late Tuesday.
After deadlocking on other possible options, the four-member committee agreed to postpone action on her case. It follows precedent of other criminally charged lawmakers who had their legal matters resolved prior to judgment by their peers.
While the June 10 hearing could reveal new information, the case against the Woodbury legislator is likely to stretch on well past then. Still, the Senate Subcommittee on Ethical Conduct agreed to reconvene on June 12 to go over what was said in court.
At the evening ethics hearing, Sen. Nicole Mitchell appeared along with her lawyers at the testifying table. But she didn’t address the panel about the burglary charge or ethics complaint filed against her.
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Mitchell’s attorney, Bruce Ringstrom Jr., told the panel that it should hold off on an investigation while the criminal proceeding moved forward. He invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not answer panel questions.
“A revolution was fought to secure the due process,” Ringstrom said. “Many are asking Senator Mitchell to forgo — she will not do this. We will not let her do this. This case belongs in court. Then it can be dealt with by this subcommittee. This conclusion shouldn’t be different because one party has a single seat majority over the other.”
Despite that, Republicans repeatedly asked Mitchell questions about her arrest and details of the incident where the senator was apprehended by police in a Detroit Lakes home belonging to her stepmother and where her father lived prior to his 2023 death. The stepmother called 911 to report an intruder in the overnight hours.
“Did Senator Mitchell enter the home through the basement window?” Sen. Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, asked.
“I am providing a standard Fifth Amendment privilege. She won’t answer any of these questions,” Ringstrom Jr. replied.
The attorney used variations of that response more than 20 times during the hearing.
Republican Senators Eric Lucero and Karin Housley presented the complaint against Mitchell and said that she violated Senate rules by bringing the chamber into a disrepute with her arrest. They also pointed to contradictions in statements she published online in the aftermath, which Republicans say were unfair to the stepmother.
“According to official documents and news reports, she dressed in black to break into her stepmother’s home through a basement window under the cover of darkness to take what she wanted without permission. The evidence demonstrates overwhelming probable cause,” Lucero, of St. Michael, said.
In the criminal complaint, Mitchell was quoted by police as saying she was trying to retrieve her late father’s ashes and other items and hadn’t been on speaking terms with her stepmother. In a social media post, she later said the incident was a misunderstanding and attributed her trip there to doing a welfare check on a relative with memory issues.
The GOP senators pointed to the criminal complaint, arrest documents and media reports that said Mitchell’s stepmother was afraid of the senator. They said the panel should punish Mitchell for disorderly behavior before the court rules in the case.
“Senators have an obligation to the Minnesota Constitution to determine the rules of our body and punish members for disorderly behavior,” Housley, of Stillwater, said. “We don’t need to wait for the criminal case to make a decision. We can review the information before us today.”
At times, Mitchell appeared to hold back tears as her colleagues called for her to be punished.
The panel’s two Democrats sought to defer action until court proceedings conclude. Meanwhile, the two GOP members said the committee should investigate immediately. Several motions failed on tie votes.
The discussion turned animated at times as committee members appeared to challenge one another’s motives or conclusions.
Sen. Miller tangled with Committee Chair Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, over what should be regarded as fact at this stage.
“We don’t have to wait to determine whether or not a member of our body is found guilty or not guilty. We’re not judge and jury,” Miller said. “We don't have to wait for that.”
Champion said everything in the public reports shouldn’t be regarded as fact.
“All I’m saying, from my perspective, is that you’re making a gigantic leap and you’re making a gigantic, a gigantic leap because you’re trying to get to a conclusion,” Champion said, reading from a 911 transcript where the homeowner repeatedly referred to the intruder with male pronouns.
The hearing went late into the night. Those who stuck around received bright yellow tickets that spelled out state statute barring them from disturbing the Legislature or intimidating a member.
Dozens of people filled the committee hearing room hours before the meeting began. Outside the Senate chamber, a handful of people yelled out for Mitchell to resign.
The panel also weighed the complaint against Sen. Glenn Gruenhagen, R-Glencoe, concerning a link he sent to Minnesota senators that showed video of a person’s genitals after undergoing a surgical procedure.
Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, brought the complaint against Gruenhagen. She asked that the committee recommend that he attend LGBTQ+ sensitivity training.
“It has to be true that no matter how strongly any senator feels about any topic, it is a violation of our Senate ethics for a member to send images of children's genitalia, and describe it as extremely graphic and disturbing to other members,” she told the committee.
Gruenhagen insisted that he only shared the link to provide context around the Senate’s debate on gender-affirming care. He said the video it contained was educational footage shared by a university. And he asked that the panel not move forward with the complaint, as it could chill policy debate among lawmakers.
“My sole purpose for sending the email in question was to help educate my colleagues on both sides of the aisle about these procedures, which fall under the category of gender-affirming care,” he said.
Members of the committee postponed any decision on his case until Wednesday afternoon and suggested their recommendation could include instruction to all senators on how to communicate appropriately in messages.