Kelliher vows Legislature will try to narrow unallotment law next session

At today’s second–and likely final–meeting of the Legislative Advisory Commission, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL-Minneapolis) (pictured) promised that the 2010 session of the Legislature will bring legislation designed to clarify and narrow a Minnesota governor’s powers under the state unallotment law.

Her statement, directed to Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson:

"I am going to say for the record that I believe you and the governor have taken the unallotment statute far too far. And in fact I believe it is going to be necessary for the Legislature to change the law next year to modernize the unallotment law in accordance with what other states do. No one could have imagined before this point that a governor would veto a balanced-budget bill in order to go it unilaterally and go it alone in balancing this budget.

"And so I think it’s very necessary at this point to put on the record that there will be a bill–there have already been two bills introduced, but I believe there will be a bill that legislators bipartisanly can hopefully support, so that this never happens again, whether the governor’s a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent. This has been a move that I believe is out of step and illegal in many aspects. We will maybe never know if it is not challenged in court. But I do think the Legislature must retain the power of the Legislature has to change the law. And I think it is necessary to say that at this point that it is absolutely imperative that the Legislature curb the power of a chief executive in terms of impinging on the legislative powers of this state."

This is no big surprise (PIM initially wrote that it was likely back in May), but today’s words amount to much stronger stuff on Kelliher’s part than she offered in response to the question when we asked her in a PIM interview about a month ago:

PIM: Do you think the Legislature should revisit the unallotment law next session and try to circumscribe those powers?

Kelliher: I don’t think that would be a bad idea. I’m
personallly a believer that a lot of laws ought to be revisited–either
to revamp them if they’re not working, or if they’re obsolete, to
sunset them, or if they’re unclear to give them clarity. That’s part of
the role of the legislative process.

So I do think that more definition around this would be important.
Do I think it’s likely this governor would ever sign it? Probably not,
given that he will be the governor who has used the unallotment power
the most in the history of our state.

She sounded a little fatalistic about it then. Maybe now she smells override weather on the horizon.

No Responses to “Kelliher vows Legislature will try to narrow unallotment law next session”

1. Anonymous Says:
   July 1st, 2009 at 10:13 am

   We will lobby to make sure the Governor does not sign such a bill untill the next elections…..and the DFL”spending Bunch” is removed to a more equal Number.

2. Anonymous Says:
   July 2nd, 2009 at 9:36 am

   Governor Pawlenty’s unallotments were about the only good things to come out of the last legislative session. The problem is that once the baseline is increased (as it was during the spending binge of the 1990s) there is a mentality that it should automatically increase every year. It’s high time to reduce the baseline by taking a serious look at what our State government is spending our tax dollars on and the effects that over-spending are having on the private sector that funds it.