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By Laura McCallum
July 26, 1999
Part one of two parts.
Governor Jesse Ventura has dominated media coverage since he took office in January. But another state official elected last November has also gotten a fair number of headlines. Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch has spent his first seven months on the job publicly taking on banks, HMOs and insurance companies. But behind the scenes, Hatch has quietly restructured his agency, firing a number of long-time employees and trimming the size of the office.
Hatch says every new administration makes changes, but some of those who have been forced out say he's created an atmosphere of fear in the office.
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Hatch: It is a hard process. There's no good way to reorganize. It is just difficult. And you lose sleep on it, because you worry about the people involved, you worry about whether you're doing the right thing. It is hard on those people that are affected, there's uncertainty, but you've got to do it. If you do it, government doesn't change and people don't change. They don't elect you just to sit there and have government as usual. They want you to implement the ideas you talked about during a campaign.About 100 employees have either been fired or resigned Since Hatch was elected - nearly one-fifth of the office's peak employment under Humphrey. About half of those who left have been replaced, but Hatch has eliminated the rest of the jobs. The high turnover rate is unusual, even after a change at the helm, according to former top Humphrey aide Tom Purcell, who started at the attorney general's office under Humphrey's predecessor, Warren Spannaus.
He says only a handful of employees left when Humphrey took office.
Purcell: I'm not aware of any firing - I was not a top staffer at that point and really on the inside of things, but I remember a certain amount of nervousness about the transition, but then immediately being reassured that it was going to be a friendly takeover and that there would be continuity and indeed there was.Hatch's office refused to give Minnesota Public Radio information in time for this story about the employees who've left, including their positions and length of service with the agency. The office cited privacy concerns, even though state employees' names, positions, and dates of employment are public under Minnesota law. Some of the employees who were fired were long-time A.G. staffers with more than 15 years of experience; the type of non-political employees, observers say, who can act as a good check on whether lawsuits have a solid legal basis.
Hamline University law professor Joseph Daly, who has seen many of his best students hired by the attorney general's office in the past, says the level of expertise in the AG's office could diminish over time. Daly says he's talked to a number of current and former employees, and Hatch appears to be micromanaging his staffers' decisions.
Daly: Mr. Hatch seems to be getting inordinately involved in each and every case, and it's causing his professionals to feel as though he's interfering with their own professional judgment. Rumor has it within that office that if you disagree with him even in a meeting, even in a strategy meeting, you're at risk of being fired. There are a number of people who have left of their own accord because they've seen the writing on the wall and they've been very frustrated by this dramatic change in how they're being handled as professionals.MPR contacted more than a dozen of the employees who have left since Hatch took office. Although all refused to talk on tape, they confirmed that morale in the office is low, and many staffers fear they might be next, and are looking for other jobs. Hatch's top deputy, John Stanoch, disputes the charge that his boss is micromanaging his staff's decisions, and says Hatch delegates authority to his department heads, who in turn are fiercely loyal to him.
Hatch acknowledges many well-qualified employees have left, but says the office continues to have high-caliber attorneys.
Hatch: The people who I've brought in are top-notch. Judge Stanoch exemplifies these people, and while it's a smaller office, I think we've got the expertise here to address the needs of the state.Many state lawmakers applaud Hatch's effort to downsize the office. Some say it got far too large under Humphrey's leadership. And one of Hatch's predecessors, former federal judge Miles Lord, says he understands Hatch's decision to get rid of some long-time staffers and bring in people committed to his ideals, even if they have less experience.
Hatch: I didn't always pick my lawyers as the top law-review writers and president of the class. I picked them because they had a dedication to the kinds of things in which I believed.Hamline University's Joe Daly says the attorneys he's talked to don't disagree with Hatch's priorities.
Daly: But what they do disagree with and are very concerned with, is his Seemingly inept people skills, his micromanagement, his willingness to step into the cases even when the cases have already been determined. That kind of Micromanagement, combined with a feeling that this man doesn't have the same kind of people skills that Mr. Humphrey has, has caused a lot of problems.Hatch says his reorganization is complete, and he hopes the employees who remain can put the turmoil behind them. He admits he may have cut too deeply, but says the only way he could determine that was to make the adjustment. I'm
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