Legislature won’t reconvene for amendment

06/11/2006

Senate leader rejects House offer omitting parks, arts funding

BY DENNIS LIEN
Pioneer Press

Hope for a special legislative session on a conservation funding measure disappeared Thursday after Senate leaders rejected a House proposal and pledged to revisit the issue next year.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, said a compromise offer Tuesday from the House wouldn’t have passed the Senate, a requirement that Gov. Tim Pawlenty had set to call a special session to put the issue on the fall ballot. Rather than negotiate further, Johnson said the Legislature should start over again next session.

“If it’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing right,’’ Johnson said.

His remarks at a Capitol news conference apparently end a political dance that had been playing out since a legislative conference committee failed last month to reconcile competing House and Senate bills. Afterward, outdoors groups pushed hard for leaders to patch up differences and to agree on a plan the Legislature could pass that would allow voters to amend the state constitution to boost funding for natural resources.

In the House’s latest offer, it abandoned an insistence that the money come from the existing sales tax and agreed to a Senate position to increase the tax. But it also stripped out money for parks and trails and the arts.

“The votes simply were not there with the deletion of the parks and trails as well as the arts and culture,’’ Johnson said.

Rep. Tom Hackbarth, chief sponsor of the House bill, ripped the Senate, blaming it for the failure to reach an agreement.

“Once again they are shooting blanks on this issue,’’ Hackbarth said. “They have all session long.’’

Gary Botzek, a spokesman for several outdoors and environmental groups, said he was disappointed but not surprised at the lack of a deal. “As soon as (the Legislature) adjourned, the whole process got even more political,’’ Botzek said.

In a letter to Hackbarth and House Speaker Steve Sviggum, Johnson said the House proposal would have raised only half of what was needed for habitat and clean-water efforts and wouldn’t leave a lasting legacy.

“Failure to pass an amendment is a temporary setback,’’ he said. “Passing an amendment that doesn’t accomplish our goal is a permanent failure.’’

Even then, he said there might not be enough time to launch a proper ballot campaign. “A failed November attempt is not acceptable and could doom this effort permanently,’’ he said.

In his remarks, Johnson said putting the issue on the 2008 ballot will be a high priority in the Senate next year. But Hackbarth said Johnson also took that position this year and didn’t deliver.

“They did not negotiate during the regular session when we should have got this done, and now they are not negotiating again,’’ Hackbarth said.

Johnson said he didn’t anticipate repercussions for any incumbents this fall. “I don’t think this is an issue that will gain a seat for anyone nor lose a seat for anyone,’’ he said.

In their bills, the Senate preferred boosting the sales tax by three-eighths of 1 percent and dedicating that money for hunting and fishing habitat, river and lake cleanup, parks and trails and the arts. The House, meanwhile, favored taking three-sixteenths of 1 percent out of the existing tax.