Sandy Keith

Alexander MacDonald (Sandy) Keith (born November 22, 1928) is a Minnesota lawyer who served as a state senator, the 37th Lieutenant Governor, and an associate justice and chief justice of the state supreme court.

Sandy Keith was born in Rochester, Minnesota to Norman M. Keith and Edna (Alexander) Keith. His father was a physician who practiced medicine at the Mayo Clinic.

He married Marion E. Sanford April 29, 1955.

Keith graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College in 1950, and from Yale Law School in 1953. He then served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War.

After returning to his hometown of Rochester, Minnesota, Keith took a job as counsel with the Mayo Clinic, where he worked with future United States Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.

In 1959, he was elected to the Minnesota State Senate as a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). During his tenure as a State Senator, Keith served as a delegate to the 1960 Democratic National Convention. He was Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota under Governor Karl Rolvaag from 1963 until 1967. He challenged Rolvaag for the nomination to be the DFL's candidate for governor in the 1966 general election, but was defeated by Rolvaag in the primary election.

In 1989, Keith began serving as a justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court. He became Chief Justice in 1990 and served in that capacity until 1998. While serving as Chief Justice (having been appointed to the position by (then) Governor Rudy Perpich), Keith handed down a ruling that allowed Arne Carlson onto the ballot at the Republican candidate for governor after Jon Grunseth, the previously endorsed candidate, stepped out of the race for cavorting in a swimming pool with minor girls. Carlson won the election, and Perpich and others blaming Keith for the loss.

After retiring from the Minnesota Supreme Court, Keith returned to private practice at Dunlap & Seeger in Rochester where he concentrates on mediating civil and family law disputes. He self-identifies as a Democrat, but has served on the board for the conservative Center of the American Experiment and is outspoken in his endorsement of Republican candidates and policies.