Minnesota Senate President Bobby Joe Champion will step down as head of the Subcommittee on Ethics as he faces questions about a possible conflict of interest related to his legal work and funding bills he has sponsored.
Champion, a Minneapolis DFLer, said Monday that he will ask the ethics panel to advise on whether he had a conflict of interest “out of an abundance of caution.” During that phase, he’ll step aside as the committee’s chair.
The move comes after the Minnesota Reformer — an online news site that operates under the umbrella of the nonprofit States Newsroom — reported last week that Champion worked with a client, the Rev. Jerry McAfee, on a pro bono basis. McAfee’s nonprofit group 21 Days of Peace later received state grant funds from an account that Champion worked to authorize.
Champion remains the chair of the Senate Jobs and Economic Development Committee, which helped craft the 2023 bill that included the grants.
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The timing of the transaction is among the points of dispute. Champion told the Reformer that his legal work for McAfee and entities he helps run had concluded prior to the introduction of the bill to free up the grant money.
The Senate Rules Committee voted Monday morning to remove Champion from the ethics subcommittee and install Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, as the ethics subcommittee chair. The ethics panel could look into the situation and provide an advisory opinion.
“I think this is a prudent move, just to make sure that any investigation in any sort of ethics complaint that may be coming through the subcommittee, this would be handled in a very professional way,” Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, said.
The Senate Rules Committee approved the change in committee leadership on a bipartisan basis.
