Suburban DFLers unite, but can they make it last?

02/12/2007

BY BILL SALISBURY
Pioneer Press


Suburban Democrats, once an endangered species, now hold more seats than ever in the Minnesota Legislature, and they are organizing to flex their newfound political muscle.

A Senate Democratic-Farmer-Labor suburban caucus was founded and held its first meeting Jan. 29. A caucus of suburban House DFLers, organized in 2005, held its first meeting of the year Tuesday, electing freshman Reps. Shelley Madore, of Burnsville, and Kate Knuth, of New Brighton, as co-chairs.

"We are looking to exert influence on policy decisions and develop into a cohesive, reliable group," said Sen. Ann Rest, of New Hope, one of three co-chairs of the Senate DFL suburban caucus.

The suburban Democrats don't have a policy agenda — yet.

"We want to get to know each other better, develop trust and get ready — if we need to — to assert a suburban point of view," said Rep. Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, a co-founder of the House DFL suburban caucus.

The suburban caucuses are modeled after the Senate's rural DFL caucus, which has met for 30 years. Outstate DFL senators meet weekly over doughnuts and coffee to discuss shared concerns and devise plans to help their regions.

Until recently, suburban lawmakers haven't had a comparable organization. Now, with suburban lawmakers from both parties holding about 40 percent of the seats in the Legislature, they could be a potent force — if they become a cohesive team.

For instance, they could get more state money for suburban schools, enabling them to avoid teacher layoffs or to add science and foreign language courses. They could fund road-widening projects, park-and-ride lots and expanded express bus service. Or they could reduce homeowners' property taxes.

Providing property tax relief would be the politically expedient thing to do, said Minneapolis pollster Bill Morris, who conducts surveys for many suburban cities and school districts. That is the No. 1 concern of suburban voters.

"Most of them (suburban legislators) got elected because of the property tax revolt in November," Morris said.

The second-most important issue for suburbanites is adequate state funding for public schools, he said.

But property taxes and school funding are also the two most difficult issues for suburban legislators to resolve, because they represent districts with conflicting interests, said former state Sen. Myron Orfield, a University of Minnesota law professor and author of "American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality."

Residents of the older, first-ring suburbs and middle-class bedroom communities with little commercial or industrial property demand more state school aid to keep their property taxes down, Orfield said. But those living in suburbs with large office parks and shopping malls aren't as concerned about property taxes and don't see as much need for state aid.

Hence, Orfield predicted tension between lawmakers from property-rich and property-poor suburban districts.

A lack of suburban cohesiveness is one reason formulas for distributing state funds have tilted in favor of the cities and Greater Minnesota, said Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, another suburban caucus co-chair.

"The suburbs have historically been viewed as a place of relative wealth and therefore a source of revenue for redistribution to other parts of the state," Latz said.

Suburban east metro counties send more money to the state than they get back. In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, Anoka County residents paid $49 more per capita in state taxes than they got back in state aid, while Dakota County residents paid $738 more than they received, and Washington County residents paid $918 more, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan House Research Department. But more-urban Ramsey County got $160 more per capita in state aid than its residents paid in state taxes.

Latz said he hopes the new caucus helps the suburbs get a "proportional share of state spending."

But the DFL suburban caucuses are not just about getting more money. Several members said their main goal is to make sure the Legislature gets its work done.

"It's about getting worthwhile things done," Rest said.

The DFL's top priorities for the current legislative session are lowering property taxes, strengthening schools and providing better access to health care. Hortman said suburban DFLers strongly support that agenda but would add another top-priority issue to it: transportation.

"Our constituents are the ones who are sitting in traffic for an hour in the morning and an hour at night. They are totally fed up with it," she said.

In Washington County, for instance, two freshmen DFLers, Rep. Julie Bunn, of Lake Elmo, and Sen. Kathy Saltzman, of Woodbury, are pushing for the state to reduce congestion and improve safety in the Interstate 94 corridor. "We have nothing planned for that corridor now; we're trying to get it on the table," Bunn said.

In fast-growing Blaine, the immediate need is more roads and highway capacity, said Rep. Scott Kranz, DFL-Blaine. But his constituents also need more express buses and park-and-ride lots.

Suburban lawmakers generally put roads first and mass transit second. But they want both.

The suburban DFLers haven't yet decided how they would pay for transportation improvements, but Sen. Katie Sieben, a Newport DFLer and another suburban caucus co-chair, said there's growing support in the Senate for providing some new revenue — possibly by increasing the gas tax or vehicle registration fees — as long as a fair share of the money goes for suburban transportation needs.

Rest predicted suburban lawmakers also would find common ground on environmental and renewable energy policies.

The House DFL suburban caucus was founded out of frustration during the 2005 session. Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislative leaders were deadlocked over the state budget, and disgruntled House members formed a rump group to try to find a budget compromise.

"We were the middle-grounders, the pragmatic centrists who tried to find a bipartisan solution," Hortman said.

In addition to pressuring the leaders to compromise on the budget, the DFLers in that group cut a deal with a handful of suburban House Republicans to pass a 10-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax increase over the objections of House GOP leaders. The DFL-controlled Senate also passed that bill, but Pawlenty vetoed it.

Nonetheless, Hortman said, it showed what suburban lawmakers could accomplish through bipartisan cooperation.

Suburban Democrats tend to be less partisan than their city colleagues, she said, because "we come from competitive districts. Most of us represent almost equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans and a lot of independent middle-of-the-roaders who are tired of both parties."

Although DFLers now have an 85-49 majority in the House, Hortman predicted the suburban caucus would work closely with moderate suburban Republicans.

Republican Rep. Dennis Ozment, of Rosemount, the rump group's founder, said the DFL suburban caucus could be effective if it works across party lines. "If we build camaraderie and develop trust and respect, that can really go a long way toward … getting our work done," he said.

Hortman expected 29 to 36 suburban House DFLers to join the caucus. Rest said 16 DFLers belong to the Senate suburban caucus. That's about a third of the DFL membership in each house.

"We want to be a moderating voice," Sieben said.

Half the suburban DFLers are freshmen, and they tend to be political moderates — in part because they were elected in Republican-leaning districts and can't afford to be fierce partisans.

Expressing a sentiment common among first-term DFLers, Saltzman, from Woodbury, said, "I did not get elected by the DFL; I got elected by my community."

Bunn, the new House member from Lake Elmo, said she and her fellow suburban DFLers are "mission driven, not ideologically driven."

The suburban caucuses are no threat to DFL unity, said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, DFLSt. Cloud. The rural caucus hasn't been divisive, and the suburban group shouldn't be, either.

"Our commonalities outweigh our differences," Clark said.