Pawlenty orders immediate special session

05/23/2005

Patricia Lopez and Dane Smith
Star Tribune


Gov. Tim Pawlenty summoned legislators to reconvene in an immediate special session following tonight’s adjournment of a regular session that failed to produce agreement on the size and shape of the state’s biennial budget.

“Our message is ‘get back to work and finish your job,’” Pawlenty said at a mid-afternoon news conference. Legislators will be required to gavel in a special session “one minute after either house adjourns,” he said.

Pawlenty said he was “very disappointed” that his offer Friday of a 75-cent-per pack cigarette fee that would generate another $380 million had fallen so flat.

“I was willing to put my neck out pretty far on the chopping block,” he said. The DFL Senate counter-offer, tendered this morning, was little more than “repackaging,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, was not immediately available for comment. Earlier this morning he had sent a letter to Pawlenty outlining an eight-point counter-offer that would have required adoption of a bare-bones, “lights-on” bill that would avoid a government shutdown should negotiations go past June 30, when the state’s existing budget authority expires.

That, Pawlenty said, is “planning for failure, it seems.”

By calling legislators back while the two sides remain so far apart, Pawlenty runs some risk of a runaway special session. Only a governor can call a special session, but only legislators can end one.

Pawlenty, however, said he is more concerned about maintaining pressure on lawmakers to reach agreement. “If you let everyone drift,” he said, “it becomes easier to become disassociated from the pressures of governing.”

“I think the governor is doing the right thing,” said House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, DFL-St. Paul. “It doesn’t make any sense to waste time. We might as well stay and get it done as quickly as possible, as long as it’s balanced.”

House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said he initially had resisted an immediate overtime session, but “the governor has convinced me that the pressure will help us finish quicker.” The outstanding issues, he said, could be resolved “in two days.” He too was disdainful of the Senate counter-offer, which would have included an agreement to cut $61 million from health and human services but also a requirement to fully fund early childhood programs and to avoid any additional property tax increases.

“It’s rewarmed hash,” Sviggum said of the offer.

Pawlenty said he plans no changes to his offer.