Following a more than two-hour hearing at the Minnesota Capitol on Monday, a panel of four state senators deadlocked at 2-2 on whether they should take any action regarding an ethics complaint filed last month against Senate President Bobby Joe Champion.
On April 10, six GOP senators filed a complaint against Champion, a fourth-term DFLer from Minneapolis, alleging he improperly authored bills that appropriated state dollars to an organization led by Rev. Jerry McAfee, whom he had recently represented as an attorney.
That complaint cited two separate instances where Champion authored bills, in 2023 and in 2025, to steer funding to nonprofit organizations overseen by McAfee.
In 2023, Champion authored a bill that awarded $3 million to 21 Days of Peace, a Minneapolis-based violence prevention organization McAfee founded. Champion represented McAfee and his north Minneapolis-based nonprofit, Salem Inc., in a handful of real estate foreclosure cases that began in 2022 and concluded in 2023, the complaint says.
Champion also introduced legislation in January of this year that would appropriate $1 million to 21 Days of Peace.
Champion has maintained his representation of McAfee and his nonprofit was pro bono, and that he had no financial interest in those cases. His attorney, David Zoll, told committee members on Monday that meant Champion had no duty to disclose the information.
But Republican lawmakers argued that Champion’s failure to disclose to the public or his Senate colleagues that those bills he authored provided funding for a nonprofit run by a past client was in itself a violation of Senate rules.
“Improper conduct includes conduct that violates a rule or administrative policy of the Senate, that violates accepted norms of Senate behavior,” said Sen. Andrew Mathews, R-Princeton, adding that Champion had a duty to disclose his recent legal representation of McAfee each time he introduced bills appropriating millions in funding to McAfee’s nonprofit—and that by failing to do so Champion “betrayed the public trust.”
“And I would make the same observation and recommendation to a member of either party if there was a bill that was directly appropriating taxpayer dollars towards one of their own legal clients or someone in a special relationship that’s at that level,” Mathews said.
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, addressed the media’s coverage of the issue, which was first reported by the Minnesota Reformer four weeks ago.
“I think it’s really important to recognize the role that media plays in making or breaking an individual,” Kunesh said, in defense of Champion. “Not just here in the Senate. But also, bringing in information that perhaps is going to influence the general public one way or the other without knowing the full bit of information.”
“I think it’s not right,” Kunesh said. “And I don’t think it’s fair to have the subjective interpretation sort of pinned on Sen. Champion. I think that’s how I feel about it.”
Sen. Michael Kreun, R-Blaine, who also sits on the ethics subcommittee, said the failure of his DFL colleagues to support a vote to continue the investigation, or take any action at all, was a disappointing display of “partisanship.”
“Sen. Champion clearly withheld information of interest to the public about his attorney-client relationship with Salem Inc., and as a result taxpayers funded a group with a poor financial track record,” Kreun said. “Democrats would rather look the other way than acknowledge what is plain to anyone else—Sen. Champion’s actions directing funds to a legal client was wrong.”
“This behavior that puts political preferences before common sense makes Minnesotans feel left out of the Capitol conversations,” Kreun added. “The committee should have stood up for Minnesotans first and made clear this behavior is unacceptable in the Senate.”
Champion told Kreun during the hearing that “there is nothing in our (Minnesota Senate) conflict of interest rules that requires disclosure other than when there is a personal financial interest or if I have a business that is going to benefit.”
Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
