Local lawmakers dinged for using Gopher stadium suites

Shakopee Valley News

Legislators might be taking "take me out to the ballgame" too literally.

The Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor did a special audit into certain lawmakers and state officials being given free admission to certain suites at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

The audit was a followup to a report earlier this year, which concluded that the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority's free tickets for events at the stadium violated a "core ethical principle," according to the audit.

Five Eyewitness News did a follow up story on the audit, finding a number of Minnesota officials who attended Gopher football games in TCF Stadium suites, including Rep. Tony Albright and Sen. Eric Pratt. Albright and Pratt represent districts 55b and 55, respectively. These districts include Jordan, Prior Lake and Shakopee.

"As a member of the Higher Education Committee at the state Legislature, I was offered a ticket and considered it an opportunity to build relationships with university leaders in a social setting," Pratt told Five Eyewitness News.

Receiving gifts of more than $5 from a lobbyist or lobbyist principal is illegal; the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, Minnesota Ballpark Authority or Board of Regents are not lobbyists or lobbyist principal groups.

When a quorum of governing bodies attends a game, there's no way to know what specifically they talked about. 

"Perhaps the members mostly talk about the event they are watching, or they exchange social pleasantries," according to the audit. "It is also possible that conversations occasionally relate to matters of official business. If the latter happens, even at a ballgame or social event, there is potential for such conversations to violate the Open Meeting Law."

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story implied that any lawmakers attending a game can violate the Open Meeting Law. This is not true. Only a quorum of a government body can. We regret the error.