|
By Phil Krinkie
With the smoke of the 2007 legislative session cleared, the Capitol rotunda emptied of lobbyists and legislators gone home, there seems to be an indisputable sense of what happened – Pawlenty prevailed. If one replays the tape of the 2007 session there are four apparent reasons why Gov. Pawlenty was successful in his jousting with the DFL controlled Legislature.
First: He came out of the box with a clear and concise message. “With a $2.2 billion surplus, there was no need to raise taxes.” In addition, the message was simple and easy for people to understand. A 10% increase in state spending was hardly miserly and was certainly sufficient to cover our state budget requirements. Governor Pawlenty repeated this message around the state at every opportunity for four months, with this constant refrain came growing public support.
Second: The new large DFL majority in the House (85 of 134 seats) elected a youthful, inexperienced, urban liberal to the post of Speaker. The Senate, with an increased majority, selected an equally liberal, urban lefty in Senator Pogemiller for its leader. While Senator Pogemiller certainly is a seasoned legislative veteran, he is not known as a consensus builder. This duo was pitted against a Governor who had survived a $4.5 billion budget shortfall without a tax increase during his first six months in office. Following that budget battle, he then stared down the Senate DFL majority in 2005 during a seven week special session and the first ever partial government shutdown. Bottom line, the Governor was no rookie! Having both one time and permanent new monies on the table certainly made the budget situation easier. But his previous budget battle scars gave him the upper hand.
Third: The veto. Heading into the final weeks of the legislative session, it became clear that the Governor was not going to be bullied by the DFL leaders when they failed to heed his warning about a bloated bonding bill delivered to his desk in April. With a stroke of his pen, he vetoed the bill and sent it back to a shocked group of DFL legislators. This was a clear sign that the Governor was not going to relinquish his firm commitment not to raise taxes. Democrats failed to take notice, and persisted in sending the Governor appropriation bills well beyond the Governor’s budget, thus necessitating huge tax increases to pay for their proposed spending spree.
It was only after numerous vetoes and a verbal tongue lashing that the DFL leadership retreated on most of the budget bills, recognizing that a special session would probably hurt them more politically than the Governor. On transportation, however, the Democrats could not bring themselves to compromise. There is an old saying that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. There was no question that the DFL transportation bill was going to market. Had the Democrats been able to control their insatiable transportation spending desires and come in with a small gas tax increase rather than a smorgasbord of new gas taxes, a wheelage tax, a metro-wide sales tax, the list goes on and on, it may have been more difficult for the House Republicans to sustain the Governor’s veto. As it worked out, the attempted veto override that was tried on the last night of session failed on a bi-partisan vote, falling well short of the necessary 90 votes needed to override a veto.
In the last hour of the 2007 session and against the Governor’s stated objections the liberals insisted on inserting a provision into the tax bill which would have put state budgeting on “auto pilot,” providing budget forecasts with automatic inflationary increases. This final move of defiance necessitated the Governor sticking to his word that he would indeed veto the tax bill. This “I dare you” strategy proved to be the Democrats final downfall and only served to strengthen the Governor’s hand.
Lastly, it was a brave, bold and disciplined band of 49 Republican House members who came together under the leadership of Rep. Marty Seifert that ultimately contributed to the victory of the Pawlenty plan. With the confidence that the 49 members would uphold his vetoes, Governor Pawlenty gained bargaining power for his budget plan.
With legislators safely back in their districts and any prospects of a special session dwindling, poll numbers and praise of Governor Pawlenty continue to rise. The results of the 2007 session are crystal clear, Pawlenty prevailed. And Minnesotans are far better off without the billions of dollars in new taxes proposed by the DFL majority.
|
