Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

"Welcome to Politics in Minnesota"
Mike Hatch, American Bankers and the Twin Cities Media

This is not a story about Mike Hatch.

Perceptions of Minnesota's Attorney-General don't leave a lot of gray area. To his supporters, he's a tireless crusader for the consumer, an enemy of the big companies that prey on unsuspecting Minnesotans. To his detractors, he's a selective anti-business demigogue with a political agenda as long as his lists of friends and enemies.

But this story is not about him. This story is about a story. Last spring, local news outlets started to talk about it. A March 5 piece in the Pioneer Press started the ball rolling:

American Bankers Insurance had tentatively agreed last summer to pay a $3.5 million fine to settle with the Minnesota Department of Commerce, according to a copy of the proposed agreement obtained by the Pioneer Press.

But the company walked away from that agreement in August and made the campaign contribution about a month later. The allegations followed:

Jim Bernstein, the Ventura administration commerce commissioner who first brought action against American Bankers, called the deal "tit for tat." "It's a good example of someone paying for a favor," Bernstein said. "The campaign contribution arrives, they back off and right after the new administration takes office it's settled for significantly less."

The conclusions, to many in the local media and elsewhere, were obvious:

The smaller penalty is one of the first visible signs that the oversight of financial, insurance and real estate businesses could be less stringent under Pawlenty's administration.

And it was obvious, to some, that the whole deal just didn't smell right:

Illegal or not, the sequence of events looks improper, said University of Minnesota-Duluth political scientist Craig Grau, who studies Minnesota politics. "It is definitely not business as usual," Grau said. "Minnesota is the epitome of a moralistic political system. Things like this are not supposed to happen in Minnesota."

We're going to look at this story in five parts:

The background: all about the state's action against American Bankers.
The check from American Bankers Insurance to the GOP that allegedly started the controversy, and how it came into the picture.
The meeting on January 8, 2003, between the principals of this story.
The audits and other fallout from the investigation.
Finally, the coverage the local media have given this story.

And it's there that the story begins.

[Next: If A Settlement Falls In the Woods, and Nobody's There to Sign it...?]

In "Chaos Theory",
everything's impossible
yet inevitable.