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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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The Friends of Alan Page
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| Contributor | karin1492 |
| Last Edited | karin1492 Jul 31, 2009 01:26am |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Wednesday, July 30, 1997 07:25:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | The longer John Derus talks, the more the story starts to resemble an Oliver Stone epic. Derus, the old-school North Minneapolis politician who for 11 years ruled the Hennepin County Board with an iron fist, is still smarting from the loss last September of a primary race for a state Senate seat.
He blames his 104-vote loss on the Star Tribune, which, on election day, ran his photo below a headline decrying "charity fraud," and on Supreme Court Justice Alan Page, who cast the key vote rejecting his subsequent bid for a new election. Earlier this year Derus filed a complaint with the Minnesota Board of Judicial Standards arguing that Page should have bowed out of the case because he has several close ties to the newspaper: His wife does business with the Strib, whose parent company has donated $65,000 to Page's private, nonprofit educational foundation. And Cowles VP David Cox serves on the board of Cowles's philanthropic arm and on the advisory board of the Page Education Foundation. Even though the petition was the third complaint involving Page's foundation filed since the former Vikings great was elected in 1992, its recent dismissal didn't surprise Derus, who notes that the board's secretary, DePaul Willette, is married to an editor at the Star Tribune.
Nearly a year after his last loss at the ballot box, Derus believes that the ruling was the result of what he calls a campaign on the part of the Strib to influence the state Supreme Court and seal his departure from local politics. The newspaper's top brass, he says, has hated him for decades, in large part because of his anti-choice stance. Although the Strib has continually endorsed Derus's opponents, there's little evidence suggesting that the newspaper orchestrated the episode to sink Derus's District 58 Senate bid.
Minnesota's judicial code of ethics, however, is clear in stating that judges should avoid ruling on matters in which they or their spouses have a social or financial interest. Moreover, |
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