Last-minute tax and shift bill is a harbinger of political fights to come

Two weeks ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone at the Capitol who really thought the 2009 business of the Minnesota Legislature would conclude without a special session. Thanks to an unprecedented assertion of executive powers by Gov. Tim Pawlenty (pictured), it did–but the terms on which Pawlenty summarily ended it are bound to carry the fight into the summer.

The DFL has already announced a post-session listening tour akin to the one Democrats staged in February, and their last-day machinations were devoted in part to underscoring their position. Around 11:30, just half an hour before the constitutionally mandated adjournment, DFL leadership took another run at passing $1 billion in tax increases–the same package that Pawlenty had already vetoed once–coupling it this time with the $1.75 billion education spending shift that the governor spent the last days of session trying to cajole the Legislature into granting him.

They know it will be vetoed; why did they bother? In a narrow sense, it was a smart move politically to offer the education shift to Pawlenty one more time before he undertakes to "mimic" (MMB Commissioner Tom Hanson’s word) a shift through executive power alone. That’s because Pawlenty will be in uncharted territory–and a potential political/legal mess–in trying to accomplish a system-wide cost shift on his own; by offering him a lifeline one last time, the DFL is trying to deflect any heat that might arise if Pawlenty’s efforts run into trouble.

In a broader sense, think of this final tax bill as a political placeholder–a post-it note written mainly for public consumption. Democrats will now press their case that the governor’s budget is a) fiscally irresponsible in its reliance on temporary, one-time moneys, and b) unnecessarily draconian in its cuts due to Pawlenty’s refusal to approve any permanent increases in the state’s revenue base.

Or at least that’s the script. Whether the DFL can put its message across depends on a number of factors. Most importantly, what will be the real impact of the governor’s massive cuts to General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) for fiscal year 2011? Pawlenty and his backers are counting on minimal political blowback from the added hardship to people Human Services Commissioner Cal Ludeman called "the poorest of the poor and the sickest of the sick."

Conversely, Democrats–and the industry group Minnesota Hospital Association–are painting a dire picture of what will happen to many of the state’s most important hospitals when they’re stripped of the funding they receive for providing care to the indigent and mentally ill. They’re making a case that the effects of the GAMC cuts will extend far and wide, resulting in service cutbacks and hospital closings that will be felt by Minnesotans who have never even heard of GAMC. But political memory is short for the average voter; it isn’t clear that layoffs six to nine months from now will be tied to Pawlenty’s cuts in the public mind. The sooner these cuts start to happen, the more emphatically it strengthens the DFL position.

There are a couple of other factors to keep in mind as the political battle is joined. First, the governor has a bigger bully pulpit. The media–particularly the broadcast media–pay more attention to his releases and press events than to those of the DFL leadership. To that extent, taking their show on the road in a public meeting format while the wounds are still fresh is an essential countermove. (Whatever else one might say about their strategy this year, the DFL Legislature shows signs of recognizing that the battle over government services and the state’s structural budget deficit has to be a year-round fight.)

But there is also a problem of message. As Britt Robson pointed out here last week, the DFL never really decided which of its two Pawlenty budget critiques–that the governor’s plan did not reflect "Minnesota values" and that it was fiscally irresponsible–to place front and center. Both criticisms are bound to surface repeatedly between now and the 2010 elections, but a little more focus as to the message of the hour may be necessary.