House Property Tax Chair Paul Marquart generally has an easy time with the press. The Democrat is hard-working and likeable, but today his press conference on redesigning state government did not go well. It got almost combative. House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher challenged "the premise of the question" of a reporter, a challenge once issued by Rep. Tom Emmer in his castration press conference many years ago. Lawmakers spent some time afterwards still digging their way out, trying to better explain themselves.
In talking with other reporters, we thought part of the problem was a lack of details. We like specifics, numbers, goals, things you can measure and easily explain to average people. A launch of an effort doesn't have details. Also, Democrats talked about reforming, changing, redesigning government, but then when pushed by the press they talked about having a "no layoff" policy in such a redesign. Reporters challenged that idea repeatedly. The redesign is also supposed to be a bi-partisan effort, but no Republicans attended the press conference (they were apparently in caucus).
Marquart delivered some good quotes like "we have to move beyond the partisan rhetoric and to growing the economy." He held up a huge stack of reports from many decades trying to accomplish government redesign. He called them "S.P.L.O.T.S." or Strategic Plans Languishing on the Shelves. Maybe all of us reporters have just seen too many of those plans that never happen and it leaves us extra skeptical. Add to that the fact it's a short session with a lame-duck governor and gazillions of governor candidates in the legislature, it just seems like a tough year to make progress on such a big idea.
