Pawlenty held the aces in this game of poker
Unallotment was a too big a weapon at his disposal for the Legislature to match.
The Empty Chair
Far from making the DFL leaders look "pathetic," the governor's refusal to meet with them in an open forum showed his pathetic arrogance. … read more As I understand the unallotment authority, it was designed to give a governor power to deal with an UNEXPECTED revenue shortfall in the second year of a biennium. Quie and Carlson used it as intended. Pawlenty wants to use it as a club to defeat those with whom he disagrees, no matter how many folks die from lack of health care or how many hospitals and nursing homes close or how many teachers are fired or how high property taxes rise in an attempt to return at least some funding to schools and cities ... et cetera.
On the Minnesota political calendar, yesterday was the traditional Blame the Legislature Day -- the annual morning-after-session time for recrimination, accusation and general grousing about how little good was accomplished in St. Paul this year.
Here's a mark of how bad the 2009 session was: Blame Day arrived five days early.
It started at almost the very moment last Thursday when Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced that the Legislature had done all that was necessary for him to take over and balance the state budget alone, which he was fully prepared and maybe even eager to do.
Pawlenty's fans crowed about his strong leadership, his "no new taxes" principles, and his skillful out-foxing of the Legislature's DFL majorities -- all stuff the national GOP kingmakers were sure to notice, they said. DFL legislators huffed about "King Tim" and assured their allies that he couldn't be serious.
But not only could he be serious, he was. People who were counting on legislators to shield the poor, the sick, and the property taxpayer from the pain of the deep spending cuts Pawlenty was prone to inflict were beyond nervous. They were mad.
At Pawlenty? Not so much. Most of them gave up on him long ago. They were hot about what they said were DFL blunders. All weekend, second-guesses hissed through Capitol corridors. Why were all the budget bills sent to Pawlenty days before the required finish? Why weren't some big bills held in abeyance, as bargaining chips?
Why did the House and Senate go their usual disparate ways, with differing messages until nearly the end of session? Why weren't the whole session's efforts geared toward wooing and winning at least three House Republican votes, the number needed to join DFLers for a veto override?
Why wasn't the effort for a tax increase mounted earlier, and with a united DFL front? Why did it focus on taxes most detested by the business lobby, and hence by their Republican allies -- a high-end income tax, and the state's business property tax?
Why were no shiny new ideas brought to bear on the budget debate this year? (The lobbyist most voluble on that point, when asked for a for instance, came up with a rusty old idea, more gambling.)
On Blame the Legislature Day, a sympathetic cluck is the response etiquette demands. I'll hold to tradition: Second-guessers, there's something to what you say.
But given that today is already Day Six of this year's postsession spleen venting, permit a gently contrarian note: Any governor, even one less wily than Tim Pawlenty, is a tough fellow for an opposition party Legislature to beat in a year like this one.
Minnesota's laws and Constitution stack the budgetmaking deck in a governor's favor. A governor cannot authorize a new budget on his own. But he can insist that the Legislature live up to its responsibility to set one, using his bully pulpit, veto power and exclusive authority to call a special session to bludgeon a lethargic legislative branch to do its constitutional duty, and send him spending bills.
Once the Legislature has acted, a governor who only wants to cut or delay spending is fully in the driver's seat. He can shrink appropriations with line-item vetoes. He can reject new revenues. If a forecasted deficit remains (and this year, a huge one will), he can drain reserves (they're already gone) then cut appropriations some more, through a statutory process called "unallotment."
No other governor has been brazen enough to flex his unallotment muscle at the start of a biennium. Until now, it's been a midcycle patch for a leaky budget.
But most other governors have approached budget-setting with a wish list and a desire to do some horse-trading: You take my old nag; I take your racehorse.
This year, Pawlenty appeared to want only one thing: No new taxes. Only that would look good to the tax-averse national Republican forces he's out to impress. He likely saw early that, given the DFL's big majorities in the House and Senate, the trading table would not give him what he wanted. To win, he needed no deal. And he always had all the tools he needed to get his way, either in May, June or July.
DFLers kept expecting him to come to their table. They even put his nameplate in front of a comfy chair, looking pathetic as they did. What they learned to their sorrow is that the legislative branch doesn't have the tools to force an unwilling executive to compromise. Short of a change in unallotment laws or a governor's constitutional powers, they never will.
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