Kathleen Ann Blatz | |
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| Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court | |
| In office 1998–2006 | |
| Appointed by | Arne Carlson |
| Preceded by | Alexander M. Keith |
| Succeeded by | Russell A. Anderson |
| Personal details | |
| Born | July 22,1954 Bloomington,Minnesota |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Parents |
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Kathleen Anne Blatz [1] (born July 22, 1954) is a former Minnesota judge and legislator. She served as the interim chair of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, which governs the U.S. Bank Stadium. [2]
Blatz was born in Minneapolis to Kaye and Jerome Blatz. She attended high school at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Minnesota, and received her B.A. summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame. Blatz received degrees from the University of Minnesota Law School and the University of Minnesota School of Social Work. [3]
Blatz served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 1979 to 1994. [4] She was appointed a Hennepin County district court judge in 1994, an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court on November 1, 1996, and Chief Justice on January 29, 1998. She retired from the court on January 10, 2006, and was succeeded as Chief Justice by Russell A. Anderson. [5]
Blatz is the daughter of the late Mary Kathleen "Kaye" McMahon Blatz (1926–1996) and Jerome Blatz (1923–2009). [6] She was the second of nine children.
On June 2, 1984, in Hennepin County, she married Thomas R. Berkelman, a Minnesota State Legislator from 1977 to 1983. They had three sons and divorced around 2000.
She married Wheelock Whitney Jr., a businessman and politician, in 2005. [7] He died in 2016. [8]
William Mitchell College of Law was a private, independent law school located in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States, from 1956 to 2015. Accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), it offered full- and part-time legal education in pursuit of the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree. On December 9, 2015, Hamline University School of Law merged into William Mitchell College of Law, and became the Mitchell Hamline School of Law.
Diana E. Murphy was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.
Benson Kelley Whitney was the United States Ambassador to Norway from 2006 to 2009.
Wheelock "Whee" Whitney Jr. was an American businessman, educator, sports team executive and owner, philanthropist, and politician.
Wheelock "Lock" Whitney III is an American art collector and dealer.
Lorie Skjerven Gildea is an American attorney. She served as chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from her appointment by Governor Tim Pawlenty in 2010 until her retirement on October 1, 2023. She served as an associate justice of the Court from 2006 to 2010 and as a district judge for Hennepin County in the Fourth Judicial District from 2005 to 2006.
Kathy Tingelstad is a Minnesota politician and a former member of the Minnesota House of Representatives who represented District 49B, which primarily includes portions of the cities of Andover and Coon Rapids in Anoka County in the northern Twin Cities metropolitan area. Prior to the 2002 legislative redistricting, the area was known as District 50B. A Republican, she is also a business consultant.
Phil Carruthers is an American judge and former Minnesota politician and former member and Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. He is also the former director of the Civil Division at the Ramsey County Attorney's Office. On September 14, 2011, Governor Mark Dayton appointed Carruthers as a judge to the Minnesota Fourth District Court.
John E. Simonett was an attorney and associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. He was famous for his wit and thoughtfulness, characteristics reflected both in his judicial opinions, and in his writings and speeches. In 2007, he was named one of the 100 most influential attorneys in Minnesota history. Of his six daughters and sons, two became judges, one serving as the fourth Chief Judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals from 1994 to 1995.
Robert J. Sheran was an American lawyer, politician, and judge. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court by Governor Wendell Anderson, serving from December 1973 to December 1981. He previously served as an associate justice on the court from January 1963 to July 1970, appointed by Governor Elmer L. Andersen. He is the only person to have been appointed to two separate tenures on the Minnesota Supreme Court by different governors.
Sara Rosalie Wahl was an American feminist, lawyer, public defender, clinical law professor, and judge and the first woman to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court where she served for seventeen years. Governor Perpich nominated Wahl to the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1977 and Wahl won the election to the seat in a non-partisan election in 1978, defeating three male candidates. She chaired the state's Gender Bias Taskforce and Racial Bias Taskforce and led the American Bar Association's efforts to establish clinical legal education. She was a champion for the mentally ill and for displaced homemakers. She wrote 549 opinions including for the majority in holding that different penalties for crack and powder cocaine were unconstitutional in State v. Russell .
Warren E. Limmer is a Minnesota politician and member of the Minnesota Senate. A member of the Republican Party of Minnesota, he represents the 34th District, which includes portions of Hennepin County in the northwestern Twin Cities metropolitan area. Limmer previously served in the Minnesota House of Representatives, and in 1998 he sought the Republican endorsement for Minnesota Secretary of State, losing to Mary Kiffmeyer. He was the author of the 2012 Minnesota constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Kathleen J. "Kathy" Sheran is a Minnesota politician and former member of the Minnesota Senate. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represented District 19, which included portions of Blue Earth, Le Sueur, and Nicollet counties in the south central part of the state.
Michael V. Nelson is an American politician and member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), he represents District 38A, which includes the cities of Brooklyn Park and Osseo in Hennepin County in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
Joseph P. McDonald is an American politician serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2011. A member of the Republican Party of Minnesota, McDonald represents District 29A northwest of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, which includes the cities of Delano and Rockford and parts of Wright, Meeker, and Hennepin Counties.
Edward Arthur Burdick was a nonpartisan former chief clerk and parliamentarian of the Minnesota House of Representatives and the past national president of the American Society of Legislative Clerks and Secretaries (ASLCS).
Anne K. McKeig is an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. She is its first Native American justice and the first Native American Woman to serve on any State Supreme Court. She was a judge of the Minnesota Fourth District Court in Hennepin County from 2008 to 2016.
The 2022 Hennepin County Attorney election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the County attorney of Hennepin County, Minnesota. On September 1, 2021, incumbent county attorney Michael O. Freeman announced that he would retire at the end of his term after 24 years in the role. Former Hennepin County Chief Public Defender Mary Moriarty defeated former Hennepin County judge Martha Holton Dimick and became the first openly LGBTQ woman elected as Hennepin County Attorney.
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