ST. PAUL - Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson took 78 seconds and 135 words Monday to apologize for inaccurately telling pastors that Supreme Court justices assured him they would not overturn a law banning gay marriages.
"I have at no time received any commitments regarding potential judicial decisions form any member of the Minnesota Supreme Court," he said in a rare public apology on the Senate floor.
The apology, along with another one he is sending to the pastors, will close an ethics case Republicans brought against Johnson.
"I regret the statement I made," he said.
Johnson did not back down from a claim that he discussed the gay marriage issue with one justice, a claim Chief Justice Russell Anderson strongly denied.
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Johnson, DFL-Willmar, delivered his apology at the end of a Senate session as required by the Senate Ethics Committee. The committee voted Friday that if Johnson delivered the two apologies, the ethics case would be dropped.
On March 17, Johnson issued an apology at a news conference in his office. Ethics Committee members sought the more specific apology to senators, Johnson's constituents and the pastors to whom he spoke.
Johnson hurried out of the Senate chamber after delivering his apology, trailing a line of reporters, and went into a room that only senators can use. He did not comment.
But other senators did talk.
Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, said justices may want to look further into the situation since Johnson had said some of them told him how they would rule on a case, something that is against judicial rules.
However, a Supreme Court spokesman said the court would stand by its earlier comments that denied any justice talked to Johnson about gay marriage.
Sen. Cal Larson, R-Fergus Falls, said he did not know for what Johnson apologized. Since Johnson maintains that he did talk to one justice, Larson said Johnson's Monday comments don't settle what really happened.
For Sen. Gary Kubly, DFL-Granite Falls, Johnson's Monday comments were enough.
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"I'm more oriented toward grace" than toward punishment, Kubly said as a Lutheran pastor, like Johnson himself. "Being less than perfect is what it means to be human."
One of the Republicans who filed the ethics complaint accepted the apology, but said "he could have elaborated." Sen. Claire Robling, R-Jordan, added: "It goes to his own constituents now."
On Jan. 19 a Willmar pastor taped Johnson telling a group of New London-Spicer ministers that at least three justices had assured him the state's existing gay marriage law was in no danger of being overturned. The minister who made the tape said he did it to get an accurate record of what Johnson said.
The tape showed up on an Internet site of an organization that wants to amend the state Constitution to ban gay marriages, which the group says is more likely to stand up in court than the existing law. Supporters of the amendment blame Johnson for blocking a vote on the amendment in the Senate.
In the days following the tape's release, Johnson changed his story about talking to at least three justices until the last time he talked about it in public he said he had a brief conversation with one justice, who made no commitment.
