Positions calcify as hopes for deal dim

05/20/2005

Dane Smith, Star Tribune
May 20, 2005

Flickering hopes for an overarching deal that would allow the Legislature and Gov. Tim Pawlenty to finish their work by the Monday adjournment deadline were all but snuffed out Thursday.

Word choices by all parties involved betrayed resignation, hardening of positions and abandonment of the more conciliatory language of late.

After vetoing a transportation bill and gasoline tax increase approved by the House and Senate, and after accusing DFLers of having done “squatski” on highway and transit funding for 15 years, Pawlenty predicted that legislators will not finish by the adjournment deadline.

“Are they going to get all their work done by Monday? No.” Months of warnings that he would veto a tax increase were ignored, Pawlenty said, prompting him to ask, “How dumb can they be?”

In equally pugnacious counterpoint, standing in front of a big orange highway-type sign that read “End Gridlock,” Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, a National Guard general and chaplain, described the situation as “political combat” and a “vying for public opinion. ... I think the public is on our side this time.”

Signaling a willingness to fight long and hard, Johnson said, “I didn’t go to the War College for my health.” Also: “We’re willing to stay here and get the best deal possible.”

Republican House Speaker Steve Sviggum said an unfinished session is “highly likely. ... The divide is very, very great.” Sviggum blamed the Senate DFL majority caucus for being “dysfunctional” and unable to agree on settlement offers.

Johnson responded that Republicans were to blame and had refused to make any substantial movement from a tax-and-budget position that amounts to about $1.4 billion less than the Senate wants, necessitating cuts in vital programs such as health-care coverage for low-income workers. “We have attempted since Sunday night to meet with the governor,” Johnson said. “Each time it’s been, ‘It’s got to be my budget.’ The last time I checked, there were three entities here.”

Mutual acknowledgment of a hopeless deadlock late in the session often produces a deflating effect, removing incentives for further agreements. “It saps you,” Sviggum said. “You lose that urgency.”

After talking most of the day about holding another summit meeting in the governor’s office Thursday night, no meeting was scheduled.

Nevertheless, House and Senate floor sessions will continue, conference committees will still try to work out differences between House and Senate bills, and summit talks between top leaders will continue until the Monday midnight deadline, after which the House and Senate cannot meet in regular floor sessions.

Pawlenty said that the last productive negotiating session was Monday night and that there has been “no real discussion of the bigger issues” and “no sustained discussion of revenue sources” for the $1.4 billion in spending DFLers are seeking over the amount proposed by the Republican governor and House majority.

Legislators will reach the deadline with some accomplishments. They have approved a $945 million bonding bill for construction projects, a minimum-wage increase and a provision that will increase ethanol content in the state’s gasoline supply. Pawlenty has signed all those bills into law.

In addition, of the nine major spending bills, the three parties have reached agreement on two—funding for public safety and higher education—and are close to agreement on about three others. Those bills could be approved by both chambers and signed into law by Pawlenty within a week or so.

That would allow all sides to favorably contrast this year’s impasse with last year’s disastrous session, by consensus the least productive in modern history.

The roadblocks

The main roadblocks remaining this year are yawning differences in spending on three of the largest spending bills, for health and human services, K-12 education, and transportation.

Sviggum said he is holding to an outside chance that a conceptual agreement on those big sticking points can be reached before adjournment. In that case, a special session could be called by Pawlenty and the overtime would be brief, perhaps ending before Memorial Day.

There also is a doomsday scenario, one that was played out in 2001. This would involve long, bitter, partisan negotiations, lots of public finger-pointing and breakdowns, up against a new deadline of June 30, the end of the two-year fiscal budget period, and the possibility of at least a partial state government shutdown.