Playing Nice

02/26/2006

BY PATRICK SWEENEY
Pioneer Press

Minnesota legislators return to the Capitol on Wednesday for an election-year session they hope will be brief, free of embarrassing reminders of last summer’s special session and government shutdown, and untroubled by the big budget deficits the state has faced four years in a row.

Gay marriage. Sports stadiums. Illegal immigration. They are among the controversial issues lawmakers will consider.

But for ordinary Minnesotans, the session’s biggest impact may be the mental image they take away of the people representing them. Legislators desperately want to finish the session on time, erasing the impression many voters have formed of lawmakers and the governor as quarreling children who can’t talk civilly, can’t compromise and can’t finish their work.

“Getting our work done on time and not going into extra innings again is important,” said Rep. Joyce Peppin, a first-term Republican from Rogers. “And less of the partisan bickering is also important to my people.”

DEFICIT OR SURPLUS?

As they begin the session, lawmakers will be digesting a new tax-and-spending forecast the Finance Department plans to release Tuesday. Legislators hope the forecast will contain a small surplus but fear it will predict a new deficit.

“We could possibly go into a deficit,” said Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna. “We’re all nervous about it.”

The forecast will constrain lawmakers as they decide whether to honor their commitment to pay back money they borrowed from school districts through two bookkeeping gimmicks and whether Minnesota can afford the election-year tax relief that both Republicans and Democrats would love to enact.

In November, the last forecast predicted Minnesota was returning to good economic times with $317 million set aside in an account designated for tax relief and an additional surplus estimated at $701 million.

Since then, a judge’s ruling, now on appeal, struck down a cigarette fee that raises $200 million a year. A 2005 law kicked into effect, requiring the entire $701 million be paid back to school districts to reverse accounting gimmicks that delayed earlier state payments. And, while overall tax collections have been higher than expected, income tax withholding payments, the biggest and most reliable part of state revenue, have lagged behind predictions.

For now, the state is continuing to collect the 75-cents-a-pack cigarette fee and is putting the money into an escrow account. If the state Supreme Court were to rule quickly on the appeal and uphold the lower court decision that the fee is illegal, legislators and Gov. Tim Pawlenty might have to quickly decide in May how to replace the fee revenue or get along without it.

Democrats want to force Pawlenty, who made a 2002 campaign promise to veto any tax increase and then insisted on labeling the cigarette charge as a fee, to take the lead in any effort to pass the charge as a tax.

“The issue is all semantics,” said House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, DFL-St. Paul. “It was always a tax.”
Pawlenty has said he might propose using money from the tax-relief account to abolish the fee.

THE ISSUES

The March 1 starting date for the session this year is the latest opening date since 1984. The session is scheduled to adjourn on or before May 22.

During those 12 weeks, issues are likely to include: a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage; requests from the Minnesota Twins, Vikings and Gophers, all seeking public money in one form or another for new stadiums; a nearly $900 million borrowing plan for public works projects; and Pawlenty’s efforts to regulate illegal immigration.

The Republican-controlled House voted last year to let voters decide this November whether to limit marriage to a commitment between one man and one woman. But the full Senate has not voted on the amendment and might not this year.

Republicans accuse Senate DFL leaders of using their control of key committees to dodge a floor vote.

“I want Dean Johnson to have to come to Kenyon and say, ‘I voted against the marriage amendment,’ “ said House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon.

Johnson, who lives in Willmar and is leader of the Senate DFL majority, said Minnesota already has a 1997 law barring same-sex marriage. He said the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing, and take a vote, on the constitutional amendment. He refused to predict whether the full Senate will vote on it.

Johnson accused Republicans of pushing the amendment to drive conservative-voter turnout in November.

“Tim Pawlenty needs the constitutional amendment marriage question,” Johnson said. “He’s in political trouble, and Republicans are in political trouble. And this is their divisive, dividing issue.”

Property taxes, which increased 10 percent this year and are projected to increase about 6.5 percent in 2007, also are an issue. Republican House leaders want to use the tax-relief account to lower next year’s increase. House Democrats want to buy down municipal taxes by restoring state aid to cities that was cut in the deficit years.

State-sponsored casinos, a major issue in the last two legislative sessions, are not likely to be on the agenda this year, House and Senate leaders say.

GETTING DONE ON TIME

In the past four years, state deficits and bitter legislative fights have gone together.

In 2002, lawmakers — House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans — fought with former Gov. Jesse Ventura, who questioned their patriotism when they refused to raise taxes to fix a deficit. A year later, a standoff between the DFL Senate on one side and Pawlenty and House Republican allies on the other side led to a 10-day special session.

In 2004, the two sides could not compromise, even on a public works bill, and the session collapsed in failure. The “do-nothing” session contributed to the loss of 13 seats for the House Republican majority that fall.
Last year, another budget standoff led to a 51-day special session and an eight-day partial government shutdown that put 8,000 state employees out of work.

The repeated confrontations angered and alienated some voters.

“People don’t like the hardened positions,” said Rep. Bev Scalze of Little Canada, a first-term DFL representative. “People keep telling me Minnesota used to be known for compromise.”

That’s why simply meeting the May 22 adjournment deadline is the biggest session goal for some lawmakers.
Rep. Jim Abeler, a four-term Republican from Anoka, said if lawmakers and Pawlenty do not change the style and substance of their dealings with each other, voters will replace some of them in November. Unlike the 2004 election, when only House members were seeking re-election, House and Senate members will face voters this year.

“If we don’t get done on time, I think we will be blamed,” Abeler said. “And seats will be lost across the state.”