Steve Sviggum and the Minnesota Senate are once again getting dinged for their ethical mishaps. This time, the issue is whether the hire of University Regent Steve Sviggum as communications director of the Senate Republican Caucus represents a conflict of interest.

The University retained an outside counsel a few weeks ago to provide an objective analysis of the situation. The lawyer, John Stout of the Minneapolis firm Fredrikson & Byron, released his opinion yesterday, and it’s clear that he doesn’t think much of Sviggum’s dual role:

…in my opinion, the conflict created by Regent Sviggum’s continued service as a University Regent and employment with the Senate Majority Caucus is an employment-related conflict as defined in the Regents’ Code of Ethics (see Section IV-C-3 of this Opinion), and further creates a fundamental, systemic clash between the duties owed to the University by Regent Sviggum, as a Regent, and the duties owed by Regent Sviggum to the Senate Majority Caucus, as an employee. As long as these two positions are held simultaneously by Regent Sviggum, this systemic conflict cannot be eliminated, managed or cured, including by means commonly used to address transactional, periodic or incidental conflicts. [Emphasis added]

Stout clearly believes the situation is pretty unambiguous. I agree; it makes you wonder how in the world Senate Majority Leader David Senjem thought this would be acceptable. You can see the whole opinion after the break.

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Senate Republicans just can’t seem to get the hang of ethical behavior. Every week, it seems there’s a fresh revelation of wrongdoing from the body. Not only that, it all comes from the leadership.

In particular, the Senate’s hiring of Steve Sviggum has proven to be an ethical minefield. First, there’s the issue of Sviggum’s tenure as a University of Minnesota regent, and whether that conflicts with his partisan role in the legislature. The U certainly seems to think it might, as it has retained a lawyer to advise it on the situation. Then, he just adds to the problems by doing something like this:

The chief spokesman for the Senate Republican caucus admitted today that taxpayers should not have paid for a pamphlet that was distributed at last week’s precinct caucuses.

Fifteen Republican senators handed out the brochures on caucus night. Republicans admitted their error just minutes after state DFL Party officials filed a campaign finance complaint.

Printing campaign materials on the taxpayers’ dime. Lovely. And let’s not lose sight of the fact that the blame this scandal does not just fall on Sviggum alone. The illegal pamphlets were approved by Majority Leader David Senjem himself.

Sviggum’s apology is all well and good, but not enough. This is a clear campaign finance violation, and the Republicans who violated the law need to face the consequences.