No action taken after ethics panel deadlocks on complaint against Sen. Nicole Mitchell
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Ethics complaints failed Thursday to advance against a state senator facing criminal charges after a Minnesota Senate ethics panel deadlocked on how to proceed.
The complaints, filed against Sen. Nicole Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury, mirror actions Republicans brought against her last year following an arrest and filing of burglary charges.
Only this time, Mitchell spoke in her own defense rather than deferring to an attorney to push back on the complaints.
“I am here to ask that the committee continue to follow Senate custom and delay any decision until after any allegations are completely resolved,” Mitchell said in an opening statement. She ended by saying, “I’m sure you understand that beyond this statement, I will not be able to comment further or answer questions related to this ethics complaint.”
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While Mitchell declined to discuss the criminal case, she said it would be unprecedented to punish her for participating in a procedural vote as Republicans have sought.
Mitchell has been under fire since she was arrested inside her stepmother’s home in Becker County in April 2024. She was charged with burglary. Mitchell has denied wrongdoing and said she was trying to retrieve items from her late father.
A trial that was supposed to happen in January got pushed off until June after Mitchell invoked a privilege for lawmakers sparing them from court proceedings while the Legislature is in session.
Republican senators have said Mitchell violated Senate rules of conduct with the alleged break-in at the Detroit Lakes home and with actions since.
“We are not a court of law and this isn’t a criminal trial. We are the Senate Ethics Committee, and we abide by our own rules,” said Sen. Karin Housley, R-Stillwater. “We know that breaking into another person's home is not adhering to the highest standards of ethical conduct.”
After the trial’s postponement, Republicans tried again to have her removed from office. Mitchell voted with all Democrats to sink a procedural motion to hold a vote on her expulsion. Republicans said she should have recused herself and failing to do so was a conflict of interest.
“There is absolutely no grounds and no precedent that a member would have to excuse themselves from a purely procedural question,” Mitchell said, contending the GOP members were making a “red herring argument” that she was voting on something that would benefit her financially.
She said if had gotten to a vote on expulsion itself, she “would have made a choice to recuse myself.”
Sen. Andrew Mathews, R-Milaca, said all of the procedural actions related to one person — Mitchell — who cast a tie-breaking vote to block further consideration of her standing as a senator.
“There’s a desire here to kind of finally split the hairs between whether the expulsion vote occurred or whether it was just a procedural vote to allow that expulsion vote to occur,” he said. “An argument can easily made that trying to hide behind that distinction is itself a red herring.”
The four-person subcommittee — with two Democrats and two Republicans — deadlocked on motions related to Mitchell, meaning no real action was taken on the complaints.
The panel intends to reconvene if new evidence is brought forward in the case, or after the criminal case is resolved.