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© Copyright 2006 - The Wright County Republican. All rights reserved.

The Wright County Republican

Volume 2 • Edition 4 • Page 1www.WrightRepublican.com

The Voice of Independence


October 11, 2006Vol. 2 Edition 4


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IN THIS ISSUEComing Out Of The Dark ---Amy L. Alexander1Publisher’s Keystrokes: Why I Believe Her2Judicial Partisianship Debate3Why I’m a Republican4Know the Party Facts4Shocking Senate Votes5Who is your Daddy?5Wright Leadership Contacts6CAIR, Hamas & the House Candidate7Do You Know Where You’re Going8Now More Than Ever Before I Believe in Angels10

Breaking the Silence About the Anointed Candidate

(Coming Out of the Dark continued on page 7)

I regret that like many, I too was duped by Keith Ellison’sconsiderable charm. I was seduced by the idea of what Ithought he represented. As a perennial DFL activist fromthe north side of Minneapolis Iworked for and with Ellison on anumber of issues and communityboards.I grew up in the Willard-Homewoodneighborhood. My mother is whiteand my father is black. I was raisedCatholic and I’m proud of myembattled Church. I’m raising mydaughter in the faith. My faith isthe fuel behind my courage to standup and reclaim my voice, a voicethat by court order has beensilenced by Keith Ellison.Make no mistake; my desire to setthe record straight is not specificallyintended to denigrate Ellison in hisrun for Congress. He’s the onewho decided to marginalize me byfiling a harassment restraining orderagainst me. He made this whole nightmare a matter of public record. He silenced me. Now it’s my turn to beheard.I first remember Keith Ellison speaking in 1989 at the Uof M. He organized the African-American History Monthprogramming. Ellison has been an icon for black militancyin Minneapolis for two decades. I was inspired, yetconflicted with my bi-racial upbringing. At a similar eventheld at South High School I was mortified by the exampleof “violence as a vehicle to liberation” that the speakerillustrated citing slave Nat Turner’s massacre of fifty whitesin 1831. The raucous standing ovation by black SouthHigh School students at the suggestion of killing whiteswas as chilling to me then as it is today.I officially met Keith Ellison at a tenant organizingconference in fall of 1993. I was twenty years old. Keithwas married. He began calling me almost daily. He took me to lunch. He took me to Uhuru Books Saturdayafternoon meetings for black militant empowerment leadby Ellison and Mahmoud El-Kati from Macalester College.I felt like I had really tapped into the inner circle of amovement I was passionate to serve.Ellison’s charm turned into flirtation.He represented my access to thesystem. He held the keys to mysuccess in black communityactivism. I succumbed to hisromantic advances. In retrospect,this was one of the greatestmistakes of my life. Our hot andcold romance devolved into a love/ hate showdown by spring of 1994.Keith belittled me about my weightand constantly criticized my everyword and action. He ostracized mefrom the community on whosebehalf I had worked so hard toadvocate. Feeling exiled I escapedto New York for the next five years.Ten years later in advance of the2004 election I volunteered to callRalph Nader supporters at the DFLVote Center. Keith Ellison walkedin with his family and when he saw me he was visiblyshaken. I told him to relax and that our fling was “waterunder the bridge.” Little did I know what was about totranspire. Within a few weeks we were emailing daily andshortly thereafter whatever boundaries we had began toblur again.By Amy L. Alexander




The Wright County Republican™ (WCR) is a monthlynewsletter published to inform, educate and inspirecitizen involvement in Minnesota politics. WCR iswholly owned by Emmer Media, LLC.Article, photo, and commentary submissions areencouraged and become the property of WCR uponreceipt unless specific copyright claims are expresslyercial advertising is not desired.Unattributed articles are written by the staff of theWCR. Thank you for your interest in Minnesota politicsand The Wright County Republican!Drew Emmer - PublisherEmail: drew@wrightrepublican.com

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Drew Emmer

Why I believe her story………Sorry to disappoint the bloggers who think they know all abouthow information about Keith Ellison’s extramariatal affair withAmy Alexander was circulated. I sent the notes from myextensive interviews with Amy and the text of two 911 logs toMinnesotaDemocratsExposed.com, the Strib and PioneerPress. Many thanks to Michael Brodkorb for having thecourage to put the issue before us all, at least those who readhis blog. Amy’s willingness to go public in this issue says a lotabout her character and her commitment to justice.I spent hours on the phone with Amy before I wrote a storythat outlined her general allegations against Ellison in theAugust issue of The Wright County Republican. I thought itwas important for the general public to know that there wereallegations of abuse and philandering because, in mostMinnesotan’s minds, I believe this subject really matters in judging a candidate’s character.After listening to Amy’s story and asking hundreds of questionsabout the details I am convinced that she is sane. Mind you,I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist. I have thoroughlyenjoyed talking to her by phone and in person. I can see wherefrom time to time she may get a little goofy, especially whenshe talks about a man she was seriously emotionally involvedwith twice over a twenty year span. But every detail I havepursued about her story checks out.Amy is bright, funny and every bit as engaging as the candidate.Keith’s “she’s crazy” defense doesn’t ring true and his grosscharacterization of a disabled woman is frightening. His “Idon’t even know her” defense is ludicrous. She openly admitshaving some mental health issues (depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress) and one must wonder how much this affairwith Ellison did to inflame her problems. Amy’s admissionsdon’t give Ellison a free pass to engage in verbally andphysically abusive extramarital relationships with her.One reason that none of the newspapers have reported onthe story is that none of them have had the desire or thecourage to question Amy. I am convinced this is one set of questions that they do not want to know the truth about. Butthey gladly accept a quote from Keith’s campaign managersaying that she was disgruntled about being passed over for a job at a non-profit. No mention that Keith had encouraged herto pursue the job or about how he rudely teased and beratedher about not getting it. She’s been upgraded from crazy todisgruntled, which is a step in the right direction.If the perpetrator of this nonsense had been a republican thismatter would have made national news the week it broke.I’m thrilled that MNPublius published the restraining order. Inthe final analysis leaking that document to MNPublius willlikely be regarded as the Ellison orgs biggest mistake of thisprocess. Ellison was dumb enough to make this issue a matterof public record in the first place. And so it remains in thepublic eye.The restraining order has some information blocked out thatneeds to be clearly revealed. Under the section that states

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By Scott Newman

“The legal issue of whether we are complying with theconstitution in the selection of our judges is the topic of myremarks. It is necessary to briefly outline the journey that Ihave taken in deciding to challenge an incumbent judge in acontested election. I simply ask that you keep an open mindand reserve judgment on whether you believe, as I do, thatthis is a critically important election issue.In 2005, as a state representative, I became involved in alawsuit challenging the authority of the judicial branch to makeappropriations out of the state treasury in direct contraventionof our constitution which gives that authority exclusively tothe legislative branch of our government. As a result of thisinvolvement, I became aware of the White Case and thecontroversy swirling around Canon 5. After reading that case,I felt the holding in White was truly remarkable in that thevery entity that is charged with the responsibility of preservingand protecting our constitution was guilty of enacting andenforcing a rule that was in violation of it. Consequently, Idecided to study the question of judicial elections a little closer.This is what I found.In Art 6 sec 7 and 8 of the Minnesota Constitution it statesplainly that the voters shall elect the judges. When there is avacancy the governor shall appoint someone to fill the vacancyuntil a successor is elected and qualified. To make sure whatthe word elect didn’t mean something other than its ordinarymeaning such as a retention election, I read the debates onthis topic from the 1857 constitutional convention. Thedelegates thoroughly debated an election versus appointmentsystem and when they adopted an election system in theselection of our judges, they meant open elections by the peopleand not an appointment system.My next stop was a review of the 1972 MinnesotaConstitutional Study Commission. That commissionrecommended four changes to the constitution as it applied tothe judicial branch: a unified court system, adopted in 1972.Authorization for the Supreme Court to adopt judicial rules of conduct, adopted in 1972 with the court actually writing andimplementing the cannon 5 rules in 1974. Third was theestablishment of the court of appeals which was adopted in1982. The final recommendation was to amend the constitutionto provide for an appointment retention election system, verysimilar to the type of system that is today being discussed bythe Quie Commission. I felt this recommendation wasparticularly interesting because it reaffirmed the conclusion Ihad earlier made that the elections described in Article 6 wereopen elections, not some type of retention election and that if an appointment or retention system was to be implemented, itwould take a constitutional amendment to do so. I thereforewent on a hunt for that very constitutional amendment. I foundit in House File 686, co-authored by then State RepresentativeTerrence Dempsey, read for the first time on March 5 1981where it was referred to the Committee on Judiciary anddied without a hearing. With this information, I am left withno alternative but to be of the opinion that the State of Minnesota has always had open judicial elections and neverhas had an appointment or retention system.I next looked at why judges have an incumbent designation onthe ballot. I discovered that the legislature passed the judicialincumbent statute in 1981 and that no other elected official inthis state is blessed with such an advantage.I found that 95-98% of all judges retire or resign before theirelected term expires thereby creating a vacancy for the governorto fill. I know of no other group of elected officials, at the federal,state or local level who with such overwhelming regularity fail toserve out the term to which they were elected by the voters.I then counted the number of votes in the First Judicial Districtcast for state senators and representatives in the 2004 generalelection and found there were approximately 424,000 votes.Over 40% or 184,000 voters standing in the voting booth didnot fill out the judicial portion of the ballot.The Judiciary is not fulfilling its obligation to voters to completetheir six year term thereby creating a vacancy to be filled bygubernatorial appointment. I believe there is a direct correlationbetween this statistic and the reason why judicial electionsrarely involve an open seat and almost always involve runningagainst a sitting appointed judge.The incumbent designation on the ballot is unique to judicialelections and serves no purpose other than a job retention toolfor sitting judges.The cannon five rules are and have been for in directcontravention of our constitution resulting in an informationalblackout in judicial elections. In the words of the 8th CircuitCourt of Appeals, “it is apparent that advancing judicial open-mindedness is not the purpose that lies behind the prohibitionat issue here. The fruits of Canon 5 appear to bear witness toits remarkably pro-incumbent character.”Working in concert, these three factors have created a de-facto appointment retention system in direct contravention of the plain meaning of our constitution which has effectivelydisenfranchised the voters of this state.Laws are to be applied equally to all, and it is not up to individualsor small groups to deviate from that law, no matter how wellintentioned or passionate in their belief that their cause is just.In this case, it seems that the fear of what might happen if elections occur has overridden the obligation to follow theoath to interpret the law in accordance with our constitution.There is a remedy of course if in fact judicial elections aresuch a bad idea and that is to amend the constitution. But, topermit the constitution to be circumvented, to refuse to followits plain meaning is wrong, a violation of the oath of office of those, including myself, who have sworn to uphold theconstitution of this state and a dangerous threat to ourdemocracy.www.newmanforjudge.com - email snewman@hutchtel.net