In 2006, while Amy Klobuchar was running for U.S. Senate from the Hennepin County Attorney’s office, the president of AFSCME Local 2938 wrote to the state council and asked them not to endorse her.
The local represented the lawyers and staff who actually worked for her. Their letter called her treatment “shameful.” It said she had denigrated the attorneys publicly and privately, taken credit for their work, refused to support fair wage adjustments, and “created a hostile work environment.” Grievances had risen under her tenure. The local had already asked the union to withhold its endorsement for her earlier county attorney race in 2002. The letter itself was later obtained and reported by multiple outlets.
The larger AFSCME Council 5 endorsed her anyway. Beating the Republican was the priority. But the people who worked for her had already put the warning on paper.
That warning never went away.
When she reached the Senate, the pattern continued. LegiStorm data covering 2001–2016 ranked her office as having the highest staff turnover in the chamber. Former aides described late-night emails (often between 1 and 4 a.m.) labeling their work “the worst” they had ever produced, frequently copied to large groups so the humiliation was public. Multiple reports detailed binders and other objects thrown in frustration, with at least one aide struck. Staff were assigned personal errands—washing dishes at her home, dry cleaning, appointments—in violation of Senate ethics rules against personal use of the office. In 2015, then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid privately told her to change her behavior. HuffPost documented the Reid intervention and the AFSCME letter.
During her 2020 presidential run the stories went national. HuffPost, BuzzFeed, and the New York Times reported the same pattern from multiple former staffers: berating, volatility, and a workplace controlled by fear. At least three people withdrew from consideration to manage her campaign in part because of that history. One famous episode involved eating a salad with a comb after a staffer forgot a fork, then handing the comb back to be cleaned. She acknowledged she could push people too hard and said she would do better.
Alpha News covered the pattern in real time in February 2019, including the AFSCME letter and the Reid intervention: Klobuchar Announces Presidential Bid As More Staff Accuse Her Of Abuse.
The pattern has not ended. A Star Tribune report published today (October 16, 2026), based on interviews with a dozen former aides and colleagues, finds that as she runs for governor she remains a blunt and at times harsh boss. Four aides who worked for her after 2020 described ongoing scathing emails, work called “awful,” and mistakes dissected in front of peers. None described the more extreme physical incidents from earlier years, but the intensity and the criticism did not stop. One earlier aide who spoke to the paper called the treatment “dehumanizing.”
Klobuchar’s defenders call it high standards and effective leadership. Some longtime staffers stayed and thrived. That does not erase the documented record from her own employees’ union in 2006, the highest Senate turnover rates, the Reid intervention, the consistent accounts of public humiliation and personal errands, or the fresh reporting that the style continues.
Minnesota is already bleeding from fraud networks that thrived when people inside government were afraid or unwilling to speak up. A governor who has spent two decades generating high turnover, hostile-work-environment complaints from her own staff, and private rebukes from her own party’s leadership is not the person who will create an environment where state employees feel free to surface problems. The people closest to her have already told us how she treats those who work for her. Believe them.
If we want a Minnesota where public servants can do their jobs without fear, where fraud is actually confronted, and where leadership means more than personal ambition, we need better than a 20-year pattern of treating employees as obstacles or punching bags. The union that represented her own staff saw it first. The rest of us have had two decades of confirmation.
Source Package
• AFSCME Local 2938 letter (2006): Scribd copy — original request that AFSCME withhold endorsement over “shameful treatment” and “hostile work environment.”
• HuffPost (2019): Harry Reid Rebuked Amy Klobuchar For Mistreatment Of Staff — Reid intervention, AFSCME letter details, personal errands, high turnover.
• Alpha News (February 11, 2019): Klobuchar Announces Presidential Bid As More Staff Accuse Her Of Abuse — contemporaneous Minnesota coverage of the letter and Reid episode.
• Fox News (February 20, 2020): Union workers once opposed Klobuchar endorsement over ‘hostile’ treatment of staff — re-reporting of the 2006 AFSCME letter with direct quotes.
• New York Times (February 22, 2019): How Amy Klobuchar Treats Her Staff — salad-with-a-comb incident, binder-throwing, “dehumanizing” accounts, highest Senate turnover.
• Star Tribune (October 16, 2026): A relentless boss, Klobuchar would bring her intense style to running Minnesota — fresh interviews showing the pattern of blunt, harsh criticism continues post-2020 as she runs for governor.
• Supporting context: LegiStorm Senate staff turnover rankings (Klobuchar #1 for 2001–2016); multiple contemporaneous accounts from BuzzFeed and others on late-night emails, object-throwing, and ethics-rule personal errands.