Back in early March in Hired guns, part III: Senator David Senjem, the Post Bulletin and capitol media credentials, Bluestem Prairie followed up a couple of posts that conservative blogger Bill Glahn made about the DFL Senate caucus campaign committee paying two businesses run by Shawn Towle $39,000 for strategic consulting and research between 2012-13.
Today, the Minnesota Senate Republican Caucus issued a press release and letter to Majority Leader Tom Bakk objecting to Towle's press credentials, while demanding that Bakk disclose payments on the part of the caucus to credentialled members of the press corps.
Shawn Towle fired back in Baird Helgeson's Hot Dish Politics blog post at the Strib, Senate GOP blasts DFL for ties to paid consultant with press pass:
Towle said Monday that Hann’s action is political payback for being the first to make public that then-GOP Secretary of State candidate Dennis Nguyen was spotted at a downtown Minneapolisstrip club with Sen. David Senjem, R-Rochester.
Nguyen dropped out of the race after the incident went public. Senjem has drawn subsequent criticism for serving on the board of one of Nguyen's businesses and taking a paid trip to Vietnam to see the company's enterprise there.
“Is that my fault? I just happened to put it out there, and now I guess I am a bad man because I tell the truth,” Towle said. . . .
Towle had tweeted the information, but his site, Checks and Balances was not online at the time that the Nguyen/ strip club story was first published on Jeff Kolb's blog, followed by a post the next day on City Pages Blotter.
Towle also demurs in the Hot Dish post:
Towle said he actually got his Senate credentials when the Republicans controlled the body and Hann was an assistant leader.
Around that time, Towle was also on the payroll of the Republican Party of Minnesota’s payroll. The state GOP paid Towle a combined $15,000 in 2010 and 2011, records show.
Towle is a political strategist and community blogger. His political website, Checks and Balances, shut down for more than a year and is now restarting as a blog.
Well, not quite on the payroll. What the records show is that Towle was paid for website advertising and "print advertising" for the party and caucuses, as this screenshot from the report shows:
Presumably, Towle brokered the "print advertising" placement for the MNGOP. This is a consulting contract, not a payroll position.
In 2011, Towle's consulting shifted from advertising purchases to "political consulting," (screenshot above) but never got on the payroll. The contract was much less lucrative, but these payments began shortly after a bipartisan group of Minnesota Senate staff and media people worked out a system of credentialing online media.
In a February 28, 2011 post, MinnPost's David Brauer wrote of the process in Content-neutral: Expanding Minnesota Senate media credentialing:
The working group — composed of Republican Senate majority-caucus staffers Cullen Sheehan and Michael Brodkorb, DFL minority-caucus staffer Beau Berentson, conservative blogger Mitch Berg, Sergeant-at-Arms Sven Lindquist, and myself — operated by consensus. Everyone was professional, constructive and agreed on the major points pretty quickly.
And the guidelines:
. . . Believe me, nobody — not the politicians, not the Capitol press corps — wants to define who is a journalist. However, because Senate space is limited, we decided on a fairly low bar: Applicants for a session-long credential must include three pieces in any format in the past year on “matters before the legislature.” That can include blog posts, video, etc.
The proposed rules state “any opinion in such pieces is immaterial” for credentialing. Does this mean more “ideological” journalists will get credentials? Almost certainly yes. But the Minnesota and U.S. Constitutions don’t limit freedom of the press to perceived non-ideologues.
However, publications “owned or controlled” by lobbyists, political parties and party organizations “shall not be granted credentials.” Lobbyists are currently barred from the Senate floor. . . .
There's more detail in Brauer's post, including an embedded document of the guidelines. Check it out there.
Towle, Brodkorb, the RPM and the MNSRC Caucus in 2010-2011
But while Towle wags his finger now at Hann--in 2011 an assistant majority leader in the Minnesota Senate--Bluestem thinks that Helgeson is remiss in failing to point out that Hann didn't have the power to hire consultants or authorize advertising buys at the Republican Party of Minnesota during the time that Shawn Towle's Key Strategies landed contracts with the party.
That authority rested in another senate employee.
At the time of Towle's contracts, Tony Sutton served as state chair of the MNGOP, while Michael Brodkorb served as deputy chair of the MNGOP (2009-October 2011), as well as an aide to Minority Leader Dave Senjem and 2011 Majority Leader Amy Koch.
Given these domains of responsibility, it's much more likely that Brodkorb would have know about Towle's Key Strategies' contracts with the state party than Hann.
Moreover, by the time Towle jumped the aisle and became the hireling of the DFL Senate Caucus--then in the minority--Brodkorb had been long let ago by the majority upon the discovery of his affair with Majority Leader Koch, who stepped down as majority leader, and the Eagan Republican had begun the path toward his lawsuit to recover his professional honor from the Senate. The lawsuit was settled in 2013.
As Bluestem pointed out in Hired guns, part III: Senator David Senjem, the Post Bulletin and capitol media credentials, the DFL caucus paid Towle first at Key Strategies for "strategic consulting" and then at Enlightened Enterprises for "research."
Towle's public "journalism"? In Hired guns, part III, we assembled his senate-related tweets at @ChecksNBalances during the time of the DFL Senate Caucus contracts to discover that his focus was mostly on Brodkorb-related content.
Towle might have switched clients, but he was remarkably loyal to Mr. Brodkorb regardless of which party paid Shawn's bills.
Photo: Senate Minority Leader David Hann.
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