I am writing this post at about 5 pm.(from the Senate floor) during debate on the Omnibus Education (K-12) Budget Bill. This major bill, which comprises about 43% of the state general fund budget, was passed out of Rules committee late last night (without paper copies even available to committee members or the public). The bill was given it 2nd reading at about 7 am. this morning, and now we are debating final passage.
Our staff and members of the Education committee have not had time to even study everything which is in the bill. Apparently, there were secret meetings between House and Senate DFL’ers over the past week. A conference committee which had been appointed earlier has not met for about 2 weeks because the Senate leadership failed to set budget targets for the education bill.
Earlier today, we passed other budget bills (Higher Education, Jobs and Economic Development, State Departments, and Health and Human Services Budget bills) which were passed in the same manner by the DFL Rules committee last night. We are also going to vote on a new Omnibus Tax bill later today that was moved to the Senate floor in the same manner.
The Governor and Legislative leaders have not agreed on Budget targets, and this has caused the DFL majority in the Senate to create new budget bills (out of unrelated House files), which they intend to send to the Governor in a “truth or dare” scenario. If the Governor vetoes these bills, as he did the first set of budget bills, we will have yet another special session.
The Governor has been very public about his position that a 10% increase in the biennial budget is a large enough, and that he won’t support any tax increase to fund state spending. It’s disappointing that legislative leaders have not engaged in negotiations with the Governor sooner. Even if we can reach a compromise on budget targets now (only 5 days left in the session), the process has been closed off to the public and minority members. The House of Representatives will not even have the chance to offer amendments to any of these bills.
I’m not surprised. Senate Republicans have been asking Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller when he was going to disclose budget targets. Senate rules provide that targets should be made public at the end of April. It was never done.
Much of what is happening is “inside baseball”. It’s procedural stuff, which is hard to explain to the general public. But the failure to maintain a fair process reduces trust levels among legislators, and causes an awful lot of frustration.
I’m trying to recall the Senator’s outrage when in previous years, the Governor would make frequent trips to the Capital to have “secret” meetings with his caucus. Perhaps he or someone else can help me remember.
It seems frustration and lack of trust become an issue when the Republicans control 1/3 of government rather than 2/3.
Tom wrote:
The Governor has been very public about his position that a 10% increase in the biennial budget is a large enough, and that he won’t support any tax increase to fund state spending. It’s amazing that legislators leaders have not engaged in negotiations with the Governor sooner.
I’m amazed that Tom’s amazed.
For one thing, the Governor’s “very public” position doesn’t exactly invite “negotiation”. For another, the Governor spends his weekends either fishing or jockeying for the vice presidency, not hanging around the Capitol waiting for legislators to call.
Tim Pawlenty knows the price of everything but the value of nothing — and he ran on that cynical principle. Can one really negotiate with his ilk?
Now, now Bob and Paul….Tom is making valid points.
I have no idea why financial targets were not made public as Tom noted. They should have been. If they were, much of this mess could be avoided. In my four years of service that was done and we all knew where we had to be. I served on the HiEd conference committee in 2005 and cannot imagine the House and Seante working well without agreed upon targets. I think that is what Tom is addressing.
And Paul, regardless of what is said in public about positions, you have to negotiate. I am sure there is reaonable room for the DFL and the Governor to negotiate on budgets and policy issues. I’m sure if I can think of several negotiation issues they (Sen. Pogemiller and Speaker Kelliher) can think of several ways to approach negotiations.
Former Governors Carlson and Anderson were on MPR this morning. Both commented how it is important to set spending levels early. Gov. Anderson noted that in 1971 he didn’t sign the tax bill until October because they couldn’t agree on the revenue side of things. That was one looooooong session!
But in the end I’m much less concerned about the length of the session—-or special session—than I am the quality of the legislation that results from the work.
Well, Ray …
I have no quarrel with Tom’s point about setting targets ahead of time, and I imagine almost everybody agrees that good legislation matters much more than parliamentary posturing or inside baseball.
That former governors Carlson and Anderson both encouraged such negotiation sounds wise. The key difference here is Gov. Pawlenty himself. I never voted for Gov. Carlson, for instance, but I appreciate that he was capable of taking and defending complex, even counterintuitive positions that went against both parties’ grains. And Arnie seemed to appreciate the role that government can play in contributing to Minnesota’s special way and quality of life.
Pawlenty behaves, in public at least, like a one-trick pony. (And I don’t like the trick.) Maybe there’s more to him than meets the eye, and perhaps he’s secretly more accommodating than his public positions suggest. But if so, he should make this clear. He made his own single-issue bed, and it’s up to him to get out of it.