Court-ordered Minnesota spending challenged
"MN Courts"12/14/2005
Conrad Defiebre, Star Tribune
Last update: December 13, 2005 at 9:54 PM
A group of legislators say a judge’s orders issued during last summer’s government shutdown encroached on the Legislature’s powers. But the Pawlenty administration disagrees, saying the lawmakers agreed to the spending.
Lawyers argued bitterly Tuesday over a challenge by a bipartisan group of legislators to the constitutionality of court-ordered spending during July’s state government shutdown.
The unusual hearing was conducted by Ramsey County District Judge Gregg Johnson, who issued the orders for stopgap spending on health programs and other so-called “core functions” of government last summer.
Republican House Speaker Steve Sviggum and a dozen other members of his majority caucus initiated the proceeding in August, claiming that Johnson and the administration of Gov. Tim Pawlenty usurped the Legislature’s constitutional monopoly on appropriating funds for state programs. Seven DFL senators later joined the petition, which now has a total of 32 legislative signatories.
“This has to stop,” argued Erick Kaardal, an attorney for the legislators. “It’s an incursion on our power.”
Deputy Attorney General Michael Vanselow, however, told the court that the action came at the wrong time, long after the eight-day government shutdown ended with a retroactive budget deal that had the votes of most of the petitioning legislators.
“The Legislature ratified every single expenditure that the petitioners are now challenging,” Vanselow said. Pawlenty’s administration, he added, “acted at all times in compliance with the law as determined by this very court.”
He also characterized the action as a political move motivated by the legislators’ “failure to do their job” last summer.
But Kaardal said the petition is necessary to uphold the constitutional separation of powers among the legislative, judicial and executive branches.
Court action to maintain essential services also was undertaken in 2001 amid the threat of a government shutdown that was averted by an 11th-hour budget accord. Therefore, Kaardal said, the trend should be stopped now, before it repeats itself again.
But Vanselow said legislators could go to court if that actually happens, which he noted they failed to do this year.
At issue is stopgap spending for the eight-day shutdown, which Vanselow pegged at about $36 million and the petitioners put at $570 million. The state’s two-year general fund budget totals $31 billion.
Johnson, who asked Kaardal several pointed procedural questions, noted that his orders for spending during the shutdown were temporary and “can’t be used in the future to require legislative programs.” The judge took the matter under advisement, promising a ruling “as quickly as possible.”
The Minnesota Supreme Court was originally asked to review the petition. It declined to do so, saying that the issue need not be resolved until June 30, 2007, the end of the state’s current budget cycle.