Two Minnesota legislators resign amid allegations
Each is accused of harassing multiple women in politics.
Two state legislators in Minnesota are stepping down in response to harassment allegations amid a national wave of politicians, journalists and entertainers being accused of sexual misconduct.
Rep. Tony Cornish, a Republican, and Sen. Dan Schoen, a Democrat, announced their resignations Tuesday after each were accused of harassing multiple women involved in state politics. Cornish, 66, is an eight-term representative from southern Minnesota, and Schoen, 42, is a firstterm senator whose district is southeast of St. Paul.
Cornish on Tuesday reached a settlement with a lobbyist, Sarah Walker, who said Cornish had harassed her for years, pressuring her to have sex with him and, at one point, pushing her against the wall of his office.
Separately, state Rep. Erin Maye Quade shared text messages with The Star Tribune, of Minneapolis, in which Cornish told her he had been “busted for staring at you on the House floor.”
“Haha,” Cornish wrote. “I told him it was your fault, of course. Look too damned good.”
Cornish initially denied most of the allegations, though he did acknowledge the texts to Maye Quade. But as part of the settlement reached with Walker, he agreed to resign by Dec. 1, to publicly apologize and to pay Walker’s legal fees, her lawyer, Scott Flaherty, confirmed. Walker will receive no money from the settlement.
“Her primary goal was removing him from office,” Flaherty said, “and that’s happened, or will happen shortly.”
Cornish, who did not immediately respond to an email from The New York Times on Tuesday, apologized in an earlier statement for his “unwelcome behavior.” “As a proud former peace officer and longtime champion for public safety, I am forced to face the reality that I have made some at the Capitol feel uncomfortable and disrespected,” he wrote.
In contrast, Schoen continues to deny the allegations against him.
In an investigation published this month, MinnPost reported that, among other things, Schoen had sent one woman a photo of a penis and grabbed another woman from behind.
His lawyer, Paul Rogosheske, told The Star Tribune that Schoen — a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, the state’s equivalent of the national Democratic Party — would release evidence of his innocence Wednesday. Nonetheless, he is resigning because he “doesn’t feel he can be effective anymore” and “doesn’t want to work in an environment like this,” said Rogosheske, who did not immediately respond to a request for further information. At an event in 2015, said Lindsey Port, a legislative candidate at the time, Schoen told her: “I can tell when a candidate is doing a good job knocking on doors by checking out their ass. Yep, looks like you’re doing a good job.” Later, Port said, he grabbed her buttocks and said, “Yep, yep, that’s a good door-knocking ass.”