So now our representatives believe that lieing is ethical? VOTE THEM OUT!

Remember, this is the same guy that helped to shut our government down last summer causing many state employees to be out of work with no pay while they played their power blame games with the budget. I say - vote them out!

St. Paul Pioneer Press | 03/24/2006 | Dean Johnson to apologize for gay marriage comments: "Posted on Fri, Mar. 24, 2006
Dean Johnson to apologize for gay marriage comments
BY RACHEL E. STASSEN-BERGER
Pioneer Press

Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson will apologize on the Senate floor Monday for alleging in a January meeting that he had received assurances from state Supreme Court justices about the 1997 law that defines marriage as one man and one woman.

The Democratic-Farmer-Laborite from Willmar will also apologize to the organizers of the pastors group where he made those comments.

With those apologies, an ethic complaint Republican Senators brought against Johnson will be dismissed.

Today, the Senate ethics committee met in a closed-door session for two hours to deal with the complaint. The committee, which has two DFL and two GOP members, unanimously voted that if the allegations in the Republicans' complaint were true, Johnson would have violated standards of Senate conduct.

But, members of the committee made clear, they did not decide whether or not the allegations were true.

In their complaint, the Republicans claimed that Johnson repeatedly lied about conversations he had with Supreme Court justices about the marriage law. Although he had said he had commitments from justices that they would not "touch" the 1997 law in January, last week he said that was not in fact the case.

He has maintained, however, and continued to maintain during the closed-door ethics committee, that he had at least one visit with a justice about the law but received no assurance about the fate of the law.

Chief Justice Russell Anderson last week adamantly denied that any justice ever had any such conversation with Johnson.

Members of the ethics committee said their decision — and the required apology — do not resolve who is telling the truth over the matter and who is not.

In the committee and afterwards, Johnson said he agreed to the apology but did not believe there was any probable cause in the complaint nor did he plead guilty to any violation of Senate conduct rules.