The 2009 Legislative Session: Game, Set, Match for Pawlenty

[This story first appeared in the May 15, 2009 issue of The Weekly Report.]

In retrospect, it’s almost breathtaking.

How could Sen. Maj. Leader Larry Pogemiller (DFL-Minneapolis) — a 29-year legislator and self-ascribed “creature of the Senate” — and House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher
(DFL-Minneapolis) — who has spent her younger but also entire
professional life in the House as staff or as a member — be
outmaneuvered by GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty? Certainly the fact that
Pawlenty is also a 10-year legislative veteran and four-year House
majority leader helped, but the degree to which Pogemiller and
Kelliher, backed by overwhelming (but not veto-proof) DFL majorities,
blundered simply amazes.

The game. Everyone knew last
fall as the economy took a huge dive that there would be a budget
deficit this year. Pawlenty wanted to balance the budget without
raising taxes; the DFL wanted to raise them. As Britt Robson
notes here in his piece outlining DFL missteps,
Pawlenty “predictably stuck with his simple but compelling message that
Minnesotans should not be burdened with increased taxes at a time when
many are struggling for solvency in this brutal recession.”

Meanwhile, the DFL
spent months talking about revenue increases before calling them for
what they are: tax increases (that’s why PIM coined the phrase “The T
Word” for our months-long series on the budget and taxes). Finally,
both the House and Senate put together dramatically different tax bills
which, in aggregate, increased almost every tax imaginable, including
some with highly popular and/or sentimental value, including getting
rid of the mortgage interest deduction, the organ donation deduction,
instituting a new Internet download tax and increased taxes on beer and
wine.

The DFL tax bills were so politically unpalatable that 18 Democrats voted against the House tax bill, and 11 Democrats voted against the Senate tax bill.
Put another way, 24 percent of all the Democrats in the Legislature
couldn’t vote for their party’s original tax bills. Good luck to all
Democrats sorting out who voted for which tax increase on the campaign
trail. Sure, Democrats emerged from the tax conference committee with a
tax bill they could agree on [except Rep. Gene Pelowski
(DFL-Winona)], but what tax increases were in that will get lost in the
other proposed tax increases by the time the Republicans are done.
Every Democrat acquired serious tax increase baggage without the
gratification of actually getting to the tax increase destination.

The set.
For both Pawlenty and the Democrats, the trick to controlling the
outcome was to not give the opposition a unilateral way out. By passing
all the spending bills and sending them to Pawlenty, Democrats gave him
everything he needed to run the government without a shutdown or
forcing a special session. Worth noting is that when Roger Moe was DFL Senate majority leader and Arne Carlson
was GOP governor, Moe always held back at least one of the spending
bills so that Democrats had leverage to force a negotiation.

What
were Democrats thinking? As best I can surmise, Democrats figured that
Pawlenty would sign some of the lesser spending bills (public safety,
ag and vets) but veto the larger ones, like health and human services,
because they spent much more than Pawlenty called for in his budget
proposal. A classic DFL tactic under a GOP governor: Appease all your
constituencies in the first round of the big bills, on the faith and
belief that the governor will veto them and the bills can be
reconfigured to pass and be signed, all the while blaming the governor
for not funding their wish list. So Democrats rushed to get all the
spending bills to Pawlenty under that theory: Pawlenty would veto and
they would rework them.

Then there was the tax bill. Given the
remaining $3 billion gap between spending and revenue, Democrats
assumed that Pawlenty would have to come up with some new source of
revenue in a hard-fought budget negotiation. And Democrats had good
precedent with Pawlenty. That’s how we ended up with the cigarette
distribution fee in 2005. Pawlenty agreed to it in a final budget
negotiation. But Democrats — at their peril — forgot how much grief
Pawlenty took from the hard-core fiscal conservatives over that fee.
Worse, Democrats forgot how much they beat up on Pawlenty anyway by
insisting on calling it a tax instead of a fee. Grief from both sides
for caving on a core issue like no new taxes? Apparently, Pawlenty said
screw that.

[Sidebar: Not agreeing to any new revenue increases
is something that Pawlenty has been telling everyone, including me, for
months. Like everyone else, given 2005, I didn't believe him. My
mistake.]

The match. Unallotment. Sure, other governors
have done some small-scale unallotting (see below), but the amount of
unallotting — after the routine line-item vetoing — is going to be
unprecedented. Democrats will surely bank on the idea that groups
affected by unallotments will come to the Capitol and scream bloody
murder. Pawlenty is banking on modern past history where interest
groups say the sky will fall if they are not funded, then the sky
becomes Minnesota summer blue and the Capitol stays sleepy and quiet.
Time will tell.

But meanwhile, Pawlenty did what he said he’d
do: He balanced the budget without raising taxes in an historic deficit
year. He can take that to the third-term state bank or the national GOP
bank, one currently quite bereft of ideas and leadership.

[In
the last 30 years, governors have unallotted only three times. DFL Gov.
Rudy Perpich unallotted $109.8 million in 1986; GOP Gov Al Quie
unallotted $195.1 million in 1980; and Pawlenty unallotted $281 million
in 2003. The operative document explaining unallotment is a brief
produced by House Research, Unallotment -- Executive Branch Power to Reduce Spending to Avoid a Deficit. [PDF] ]

May 16, 2009 Update: Whoops. Worked off an old list. Pawlenty also unalloted $271.6 million in December 2008. Here are the specifics of that unallotment.

No Responses to “The 2009 Legislative Session: Game, Set, Match for Pawlenty”

1. Anonymous Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 9:11 pm

   By Wayne Cox

   Movement conservatives are happy Gov. Pawlenty may win in stopping taxes. The public may not be so happy. This week, the KSTP poll showed 57 percent of Minnesotans do not want him to run for reelection. Star Tribune poll shows 50 percent disapprove of Pawlenty, while 46 approve. His numbers have declined steadily for many months. His line veto/unallotment move this week may be seen as some as decisive–but that isn’t how it has been portrayed the last two nights on WCCO-TV. The focus there was on the tens of thousands who will lose their health care and the hospitals who will face extreme financial distress when these newly uninsured now have to come to the emergency room for care.

   Snatching health care from the disabled? Strib poll said few think cuts like these are approriate.

   The governor says: I’m doing it to protect jobs. Yet, his actions will cost the Minnesota 20,000 jobs, mainly in the private sector health care area. But not to worry, he’s protected the tax cuts for the rich, so they will make up these jobs. So the same “job producers” who have taken the money the last 10 years and haven’t produced any jobs are now finally going to whip up some jobs?

   He may stop restoring higher taxes on high income and on alcohol. Yet, two-thirds of the public think these are good ideas, sez Strib poll, particularly if used to prevent painful cuts. Meanwhile, a nice big round of Pawlenty property tax increases are in store for those non-rich mortals who don’t enjoy the protection of the governor for their taxes.

   Regarding Pawlenty’s national ticket aspirations, his drawing the line in the sand and fending off the taxers when he had all those Democrats against him will certainly look good to movement conservatives nationally. If the Republican Party four years or eight years from now thinks Club for Growth type candidates are the way to go for them, Pawlenty might have a shot. (Albeit, not much of one, for if the party is still hyper-conservative then, it will mean it is still small-tent.) In small-tent GOPland, evangelicals dominate. Pawlenty is off the radar of those folks. Think Palin, Romney, Huckabee. In GOP polls, these three dominate. Pawlenty is nowhere to be seen. Why would evangelicals choose a Pawlenty–one of McCain’s election chairs–when they can go for the real thing–like a Sarah Palin. Pawlenty’s only chance in small-tent GOPland is the way McCain squeezed through: have three or more conservatives (Romney, Huckabee, Paul, in McCain’s case) split the primary/caucus votes with Pawlenty picking up enough of the rest of the vote.

   If GOP goes bigger tent, Pawlenty gets passed over. He’s the guy that shrank the GOP in Minnesota from large majorities in the House to almost irrelevancy. In bigger tent GOPland, Pawlenty’s Club for Growth gold stars might hurt, not help.
   For all the attention given to GOP being stuck in the rut, the process for veering itself back to the center has already begun.
   The national Republican Senate election committee isn’t backing the Club for Growth candidates outside the south.
   It is backing moderate candidates for strong environmental records in Connecticut and Delaware, for example, with their candidates ahead in the polls at this stage. If Ridge doesn’t run, the committee will find some other moderate Republican to run against the Republican Club of Growth candidate in Pennsylvania.

   When Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced this week he would run for US Senate, it took 15 minutes for the GOP senate election committee and the national Republican Party to announce it was throwing the movement conservative in the race under the bus and backing moderate Crist. You remember Crist–the guy Limbaugh thinks of as the antiCrist for standing up with Obama to get recovery stimulus dollars for Florida. Crist–the guy who with Schwatzenegger is pushing vigorous enviromental reform. Crist is completing a legislative session with another round of major accomplishments. He didn’t propose raising taxes–but he agreed to a $1 billion increase in the cigarette tax as part of a budget deficit solution.

   Whoever runs four years from now for the GOP is likely a sacrificial lamb. The best hope is 2016. By that time, a guy like Crist with six years in the US Senate as a environmentally strong moderate would be a good match for the mindset of the national electorate. If GOP goes big tent, it goes to the future with a Crist, not to the trickle-down, Club for Growth failed past with a Pawlenty.

   After this session, Pawlenty will have further cemented himself as an inflexible movement conservative. “King Tim.” “Governor Go it Alone.” That is a credential those in the GOP who are trying to return it to winning ways may not find a plus.

   In speeches, Pawlenty tries to sell himself as a big-tent guy. “I’m the son of a truck driver. Republicans need to attract Sam’s Club voters, not just country club voters.” Of course, he will have little ’splaining to do on that one. “Let’s see, Governor, you thought it was better to take away health coverage from 100,000 Minnesotans rather than ask those with highest incomes to give back some of their tax cuts.”

   Pawlenty: “I know how to get ordinary working Democrats to believe Republicans are better for them. How? We are working harder to make sure there are jobs.” Convincing working families of the merits of trick-down economics after the last eight years of George Bush and record unemployment under Pawlenty, however, might be a tall order even for one with as gifted a tongue as Governor Pawlenty. The next time Pawlenty gives his “I can win over Democrats” speech in Washington, he might consider adding an explanation why in this week’s KSTP poll, 80 percent of Democrats think he should not run for reelection.

   Pawlenty’s big problem moving forward here or nationally is his record as an intransigent movement conservative. Last year when the legislature adopted the bill to finance the renovation of the Minnesota bridges next in line to fall, he vetoed the bill. The legislature overrode his veto, and the Democrats were returned to office with even bigger majorities. The public in Minnesota understood the difference between those who work together to achieve sensible solutions and those who put the ideology of the movement ahead of progress.

   Governor Pawlenty may succeed in imposing his will this session. But the cost may be high. Movement conservatives will see his actions as leadership. Others, including some former Minnesota Republican governors and the 57 percent of Minnesotans who do not want him to run for reelection, will more likely see it as intransigence, Pawlenty as Governor Gridlock.

   This time, Pawlenty has seriously overreached: I do not need the legislature. I am the decider.
   This level of arrogance materially ramped up the energy of those who do not share his views–mayors, universities, hospitals, nursing homes, school districts–folks who count in cities across the state. He says he can hold all Republican legislators with him in the cause of inflicting big hurt in each of their districts so he can keep Minnesota safe for its high-income job-non-producers.

   But maybe not. Republican House members are as aware of anyone of the high body count of Republican legislators who put the ideological purity of Governor Pawlenty ahead of the material needs of their district.

   Pawlenty may hold them together anyway. If so, prepare yourself next election for another round of the continuing self-immolation of the Republican Party of Minnesota.

   This session, Pawlenty may win the battle with the legislature. But there is little doubt he is losing the war for his future.

   Wayne Cox is Executive Director of Minnesota Citizens for Tax Justice.

2. Anonymous Says:
   May 19th, 2009 at 10:23 am

   Come July 1, Pawlenty will have to cut programs and services that people actually want. That is the short-sighted thing GOP anti-taxers fail to grasp. Its easy to run on a generic “taxes suck” platform.

   But citizens actually want government to perform. That is part of the reason GWB was such a failure - from Katrina to Osama still on the loose, we saw what GOP leadership looks like in this era of ideology over results.

   Well, when T-paw has to actually unallot popular programs, he’ll pay politically. The U and MNSCU will have to spike tuition at a time when a lot of people need new skills and training. Every citizen will know why her or his property taxes will soar once again.

   This move is bold, but will prove foolish. He owns all the states fiscal problems now. And the coming cuts will upset a lot of moderates. He may actually leave a legacy of even higher taxes as he rides off to DC as either a Prez candidate or a high-buck lobbyist. It’ll be his kiss-off to a state he knocked down 3 or 4 pegs. When it all hits the fan next year, and for sure after the 2010 MN House and Gov elections, taxes will go up. And more than the bit the DFL proposed this time, ’cause the fiscal hole Pawlenty is digging in cut services and programs will be that much bigger.

   The DFL put forward a balanced budget that relied 86% on cuts, shifts and stimulus funds, only 14% on taxes. That sort of reasoned approach was tossed in the ditch by Pawlenty - all for his national ambition. It impresses Janecek and Club for Growthers, but not day to day citizens.

3. Anonymous Says:
   May 19th, 2009 at 10:59 am

   Check our American Conservative Magazines recent post on the decline in GOP party I.D. It is dropping fastest in the Midwest. http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2009/05/18/not-to-worry-pretty-soon-no-republicans-will-be-influential/

   The Midwest figures are stunning: Republican ID in this region has dropped by nine points. This is not just the heartland, which the GOP is supposed to represent so well, but it has been the historic core of Republican politics at a national level since the founding of the party. Even having lost the Northeast is not quite as bad as being decimated in the Midwest. The GOP has even lost five points among married voters, six points among whites, seven points among men and nine points among middle-income voters, all of which are equal to or greater than the national average. This is the hollowing-out of the Republican coalition as we know it. McCain will be pleased to find that Republican ID among college graduates has dropped by ten points in the last eight years