Senate Republicans come out swinging

Partisan budget battle, trouble for PUC’s Anderson mark first week back

It was supposed to be such a nice session. Or at least that’s what Capitol watchers and many lawmakers were expecting after last year’s bitter shutdown fight.

Nor was that the only wound still in need of closing. After an implosion within Senate GOP ranks occasioned by the scandal that took down former Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, it appeared that things would finally settle down as the new year commenced and a new Senate majority leadership team got to work. The conventional wisdom was that most legislators wanted to make as little noise as possible and hit the campaign trail early. And on the Senate side, that impression was underwritten by the affable reputation of new Majority Leader Dave Senjem.

Yet the first week back proved anything but cordial. Even before the inaugural floor session gaveled in, word began circulating that Senate Republicans had decided to ax the Dayton administration’s Public Utilities Commission chairwoman, Ellen Anderson, in the session’s early going. And on the first day, the Rules Committee voted to approve a budget that will cut more than a dozen staffers from the DFL minority caucus while leaving GOP caucus staffing untouched. In short, Senate Republicans took opening shots at both Senate Democrats and the Dayton administration, and many at the Capitol now think that posture is unlikely to change as the session unfolds.

Still looming over the chamber is the possibility of an ethics complaint from Democrats over how the Koch affair was handled, which seems more likely now than it did in the days before the session. And Democrats in both chambers are sure to be irked by a vigorous out-of-the-gate push by Republicans to put more constitutional amendments on the ballot in the fall.

A ‘dangerous precedent’

Any bipartisan bonhomie marking the start of the session came to a screeching halt as the Senate Rules Committee was called to order less than an hour into the proceedings. It was there that Republican senators planned to unveil their proposal to cut nearly $2.7 million from the chamber’s budget, a 5 percent reduction as required by the budget that legislative leaders and Gov. Mark Dayton agreed upon last July.

The budget called for the minority caucus to take a $444,400 staffing reduction, which would equate to the loss of 12 to 14 of Senate DFLers’ 43 full-time staffers. Republicans also saved money by requiring employee furloughs, eliminating match programs and not hiring temporary staffers (such as committee pages) or other nonpartisan Senate staffers, a series of actions projected to save $385,000.

But of 73 full-time Senate Republican caucus staffers, none were cut.

Democrats had been warned. Word of the cuts made its way around the halls of the Capitol on Tuesday morning, and by the afternoon, the Rules Committee room was filled with reporters and curious onlookers. DFLers didn’t temper their outrage in committee. “I don’t think anybody would consider this to be fair,” 10-term Sen. Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, said. “You can sugarcoat this all you want; it’s an unfair action taken by the majority against the minority just because you’ve got the votes to do it.”

Senate DFLers on the committee — Minority Leader Tom Bakk and Sens. Dick Cohen, Langseth and James Metzen — also alluded to a possible Senate takeover by Democrats in 2012. If that happens, they noted ominously, they could treat the Senate Republican caucus the same way. “It’s kind of a bouncing ball effect,” Metzen said. “If we come back, do we treat the other side like you’re treating us today? It’s a slippery slope; I don’t think we should go down it.”

Bakk, who has said he thinks DFLers will gain control of the chamber after the 2012 election, said Senate Republicans were setting a “very dangerous precedent.” “I understand the majority in the Senate has only flipped twice since statehood,” he said. “It’s a very dangerous precedent to say the minority caucus will take all of the staffing reductions when there’s a budget problem.”

Senjem, in acting as the committee’s referee, chided DFLers when the reactions became too severe. “OK, OK, OK,” Senjem said after Metzen’s remarks, quietly cutting him off. While few Republicans engaged with DFLers during the committee, Senjem made his caucus’ case. The DFL, he said, despite holding fewer seats than the Republicans, has $160,000 more for legislative support. (That’s likely because of higher DFL salaries that result from its employees gaining seniority over the nearly 40 years it controlled the chamber.)

“You have $160,000 more to work with, and you can work with that in any fashion that you want, and so might we work with $160,000 less in any fashion that we want,” he sparred back. By many accounts, Senjem is merely playing the bad cop in presenting a budget that was all but finalized under Koch’s watch. The budget was enacted on a 7-4 party-line vote, though some Republican members and staffers expressed reservations privately.

Publicly, though, they stressed the same theme Senjem had sounded at the hearing. “On first blush it might be considered by some to be unfair,” said Republican Sen. Warren Limmer, who sits on the Rules Committee. “But when you look at some of the big dollar amounts [Senate DFLers] are getting for their staff, it becomes about the only way we can do it.”

Many DFL senators, meanwhile, are predictably livid over the partisan tilt of the budget. One DFL House member said Thursday his conversations led him to believe his Senate counterparts were “ready to go to war.”

Commissioner politics

Initial reports that Senate Republicans planned to vote down the appointment of former DFL Sen. Ellen Anderson as head of the Public Utilities Commission during the first week of session did not come to pass, but the floor vote is still expected to come soon, possibly during Monday’s session.

Anderson’s appointment was heard in committee last session and sent to the floor without recommendation, but she earned criticism from Republicans, who said her long, liberal career in the Senate proved her incapable of being impartial in her new role. Dayton said Tuesday he had heard nothing of such plans but added of all his nominees: “There’s nobody who deserves that kind of treatment.”

Republicans could also be looking to tee up a few more commissioner confirmation votes in the near future. Minnesota Management & Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter will face a confirmation hearing in the Senate Finance Committee next week. But the former Pawlenty-era state budget director is expected to encounter no difficulties in confirmation.

Ongoing tensions between Koch and caucus

Before lawmakers even clamored back into the Capitol halls on Tuesday, Koch and members of her caucus were already trading barbs in the news media over the chain of events that led to her resignation. Koch sent out the first shot, characterizing the series of events that led to her sudden resignation as a “punch to the face.”
“I have taken a punch to the face and can say, ‘OK, that one hurt,’ and move forward,” Koch told the Star Tribune. Republican Sen. David Hann took issue with Koch’s characterization of the affair in the Pioneer Press. “We had a positive duty and obligation to do those things,” he said, adding that “if anybody got punched in the face, it was the caucus.”

As the session continues, the question will be whether Koch’s presence becomes a distraction. While Senjem has said he doesn’t plan to pursue an ethics complaint to review the Koch scandal, and DFLers have backed off the notion of filing a complaint against Koch herself, there appears to be renewed enthusiasm among Democrats for conducting an inquiry into how the matter was handled by former Deputy Majority Leader Geoff Michel, who — it was later revealed — initially misrepresented the timeline of events (to protect the identity of whistle-blower and former caucus Chief of Staff Cullen Sheehan, Michel said).

A comment made by new GOP Senate spokesman Steve Sviggum in an interview with MinnPost will likely come into play if an ethics complaint is pursued: “It was the cover-up part that was the problem,” Sviggum told reporter Cindy Brucato, referring to Michel’s admission that he had changed his story about when he learned of the relationship. “Especially Republicans, it’s pretty tough not to live those values. Better walk your talk.”

For his part, Sviggum says his comments were taken out of context, and that he actually meant Koch and other senators would not be literally shielded or hidden from the media.

Republicans line up constitutional amendments

Meanwhile, constitutional amendment proposals were flying thick and fast at the start of the 2012 session.
Republican Sen. Scott Newman held a news conference on Thursday to announce an immediate push to put a photo ID requirement to vote on the ballot in the fall. A total of 10 senators have signed on to two versions of the bill. “The people of Minnesota and I think it is important,” Newman said, saying he wants to move forward on the bill as fast as possible. GOP Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer will carry an identical bill in the House.

A right-to-work constitutional amendment was garnering buzz around the Capitol halls, too. A conservative advocacy group released a report touting the benefits to business of right-to-work legislation, and GOP Sen. Dave Thompson, a freshman and former member of the leadership team, said he plans to introduce a proposal in the next few weeks.

The two proposals are only a fraction of the constitutional amendments that came into the legislative hopper last week, covering everything from “freedom to choose health care” to limiting the amount of borrowing that can be done by school districts.

The amendments will heighten partisan gridlock, Democrats say. “It’s going to be very divisive,” DFL Rep. Alice Hausman said of the amendments. “Why do we suddenly have to start writing everything into the Constitution?”
GOP Rep. Jim Abeler, who has said he has been wary of some constitutional amendments in the past, said things are harmonious in the House now but added, “It’s always harmonious until something happens.”

One Response to “Senate Republicans come out swinging”

1. James Carson Says:
   January 30th, 2012 at 12:48 pm

   The minority DFL gets more money than the majority GOP and they still complain? They should thank the GOP majority for not cutting them to equality.