Lawmakers have focused to-do list

02/26/2006

Top projects: Budget, bonding, amendments

BONDING

Borrowing a boatload of money to finance construction projects will be at the top of the 2006 Minnesota Legislature’s to-do list.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has proposed an $897 million building program that covers everything from college classrooms and prison cells to parks and passenger rail lines. The Legislature is almost certain to add pet projects and boost the cost.

Most of the costs would be financed by selling state-backed bonds to investors who would be repaid over 20 years. Passing the bonding bill traditionally is the Legislature’s most important issue in even-numbered years. During odd-numbered years, lawmakers traditionally set the state’s overall two-year budget.

State colleges and universities would get most of the money in this year’s bill to repair and replace aging buildings.
Lawmakers also will consider funding a light-rail-transit line in the Central Corridor between the St. Paul and Minneapolis downtowns, bus rapid-transit lines running north from Apple Valley and Lakeville, prison expansions in Stillwater and Faribault, and major improvements at the Minnesota Zoo.

BUDGET

Minnesota currently has $317 million carried over from the last two-year budget that is set aside in a fund labeled “tax relief account” that has no designated use. There may be lots of demands on that money.
Lawmakers have talked about using it to provide about $60 million worth of tax breaks to married couples, who pay state taxes on part of their income that is not subject to federal taxes.

Some legislators want to use that account to reduce property taxes that schools raised last year; others want to restore early childhood education funding.

If the revenue forecast Tuesday predicts a deficit or even a small surplus, lawmakers and Pawlenty will face pressure to renege on an obligation they face to repay more than $701 million the state borrowed from school districts through accounting shifts.

All the budget decisions are complicated by a legal cloud hanging over $200 million a year that the state is continuing to collect from a new cigarette charge. The state Supreme Court will rule this year, perhaps by the end of the session, whether the fee is legal.

If the court agrees with a lower court judge that the fee is not legal, lawmakers and Pawlenty will have the option of re-passing the fee as an excise tax. But they probably would have to tap the tax relief account or suspend part of the school repayments to pay out some $140 million in refunds of the fee.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

Even-numbered years also are the time for lawmakers to debate state constitutional amendments, and lawmakers will likely debate many changes to the 148-year-old document.

If an amendment passes the House and Senate, then the issue goes before voters Nov. 7. To pass, the amendment must get a majority of all Election Day voters to vote “yes.’’ It’s been eight years since Minnesota voters got a chance to amend the state constitution.

The amendment destined to attract the most attention would constitutionally limit marriage and its legal equivalent to one man and one woman. In both of the last two years, the amendment handily passed the state House but failed to pass the Senate.

Health care advocates also might force discussion of measures that would guarantee access to affordable health care. Lawmakers also will be asked to approve some variety of amendment that would fund environmental, and potentially arts, projects.

Election Day voters are sure to have at least one amendment to decide: last year, lawmakers approved a measure that would dedicate the motor vehicle sales tax to transportation needs.

EDUCATION

Don’t expect a lot of education talk this session.

Lawmakers already have taken up high-profile issues like standards and the budget. Minnesota schools received $800 million in new state funding for this school year and next — the first increase after three years of flat state spending.

A proposal by Minnesota superintendents to extend the school year by five weeks got a lot of attention when it was released earlier this year, but it’s unlikely lawmakers will take a serious look until 2007.
Expect education groups to ask for additional funding for rising energy costs and special education.

EMINENT DOMAIN

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that cities could seize private homes to make way for commercial developments, legislators pledged to pass laws protecting property owners’ rights.

There’s bipartisan support in both houses for limiting the use of eminent domain, the power of local governments to buy private property for their own use without the owner’s consent. Lawmakers have proposed changing state law so private homes and businesses can be seized only for public uses such as roads, parks and schools.

ENVIRONMENT

Lawmakers will try again to pass a Clean Water Legacy bill, but to succeed, they must resolve differences over how to pay for the federally required effort, which is projected to cost $80 million a year for a decade or more.

A key step will be whether Pawlenty includes money for the effort in his supplemental budget. Other options include the general fund and a voter-approved constitutional amendment.

So far, only 10 percent of Minnesota’s rivers and 16 percent of its lakes have been adequately tested to determine whether they meet the pollution standards of the Clean Water Act.

IMMIGRATION

House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said Republicans want to:

• Tighten state welfare and health care eligibility to exclude illegal immigrants.

• Put into statute the current rules requiring visa-expiration dates on driver’s licenses.

• Outlaw Minneapolis and St. Paul ordinances that direct police not to report immigration violations to federal authorities.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, said Democrats want to be “positive about our immigrants, not punitive.” But he said Democrats will support efforts to crack down on the use of false identity papers.

SMOKING

Last year, lawmakers pushed a ban on smoking in all bars and restaurants, but the measure failed to win enough support to become law. The push will be back this year but may not have enough momentum to come to fruition.

TRANSPORTATION

Pawlenty announced he wants a bill passed that would allow him to issue $2.5 billion in bonds for highway projects if a constitutional amendment on the motor vehicle sales tax passes in the fall. Senate opponents say the bonding plan runs up the state’s debt and makes each project cost 50 percent more than if the highway projects were paid in cash. The constitutional amendment also is contentious. As passed last year, the proposed amendment calls for all of the motor vehicle sales tax money to go to roads and mass transit. However, it specifically states mass transit will get a minimum 40 percent of the money, and some legislators think the language should be changed to ensure that roads will get 60 percent.