don1_edited-1Within hours of a Monday meeting at the state Capitol at which reporters heard that proposed restrictions on media wouldn’t go into force, state troopers descended on a reporter for taking a photo of a legislator who was offering a bill to a state House of Representatives committee.

Among other issues voiced at the meeting, reporters objected to a new requirement that media carry credentials for covering House committee hearings. (”What the hell are ‘committee credentials’?” DFL Caucus communications chief Andrew Wittenborg was asked.) That was apparently the problem at a committee meeting Monday evening.

Don Davis, Capitol bureau chief for Forum Communications, tells his story at the Capitol Chatter blog:

Two hours after Wittenborg’s meeting, I was trying to take a photo of Rep. Paul Marquart of Dilworth presenting a bill to a House committee. A page approached and asked to see my credentials before she would allow me to take photos. Recalling Wittenborg’s assurances that no credentials were needed, I told her that I had just been told I did not need to present credentials (which, by the way, hung in plain sight from a lanyard around my neck) and I continued to photograph Marquart.

Soon after I returned to my seat in the back of the room, two state troopers approached me after the page had called them, apparently to kick out this photographer. Both had seen me plenty of times and knew I was legitimate, so gave me little hassle.

Not long after I returned to the office to write my story, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher called to apologize for the incident and promised it would be investigated. And Marquart called to apologize, even though he did not even know the troopers were talking to me at the time and had no knowledge of the proposed rule changes until I told him.

Davis’ account recalls an incident last week, when a House page admonished The UpTake’s Tom Elko for using a video camera in a House subcommittee meeting. Elko, who carried state Senate but not House credentials, told the Minnesota Independent he went willingly with the page to the Sergeant-at-Arms’ office to discuss the matter.