Almanac: At the Capitol

Sen. Dick Cohen joined Sen. Tarryl Clark for her weekly press briefing and the serious student of history and fiscal matters was pleased to announce that legislative budget targets have been delivered the "earliest in decades, since 1917 as best as we can tell."  Despite the early arrival of legislative budgets, the Capitol is still full of pessimism that lawmakers and the governor will agree on anything in time for the regular session to end May 18.  Democrats are a billion dollars apart on education.  Gov. Pawlenty and Democrats are about $2 billion apart on tax increases.  Despite the federal money, there's still a huge $4 billion dollar shortfall.

Sen. Geoff Michel has been especially visible with Senate Minority Dave Senjem since the leader's misstep on being against a four year balanced budget he voted for and didn't know was signed into law.  But Senjem set it up well today when he said "obviously there are huge differences on the cut side, the Senate goes across the board and House is more like the governor."  It is a bit shocking on the face of things that the House DFL is closer to the gov on cuts and education spending.  Sen. Clark said "we're two different bodies; we're not going to be the same."  

Lawmakers debate a bill that would commit them to balancing the state's budget and Coleman's team could conclude their arguments in the Senate election trial this week.

View the Capitol Update for February 26, 2009.

REAL ID is back. The Senate Finance Committee just added an opt-out for Minnesota into another bill. Sen. Mee Moua's bill had to do with executive branch whistleblower protection. Ironic that this new bill would send the executive branch a bit of a bomb. Conservatives were considering joining liberals on an override of the governor's veto of the transportation bill that contained a REAL ID opt-out. John McCain is the only major candidate (Democrat or Republican) to support REAL ID. And we don't have to draw the line between Pawlenty and McCain for our astute readers. Conservative Senator Warren Limmer joined liberal Moua in making this happen. Limmer said he doesn't want this foisted onto the state from the fed and we should join the ranks of states opting out of this mandate. The bill heads straight to the Senate floor.

In the same quick committee we found out that Senate Bonding Chair Keith Langseth is officially on board on reviving Central Corridor light rail. The Senate Finance Committee just moved a new bill along on this as well. These amended bills are called "vehicles" in Capitol speak. Chair Dick Cohen asked a very rural Langseth if he was really in favor of this and Lanseth responded "I wouldn't be here if I wasn't." Langseth said he hopes to get Central Corridor to the Senate floor yet today and possibly quickly on to the governor. Pawlenty was clear again today that he won't sign money for the Central Corridor without an overall budget deal first. He said he didn't feel any pressure to sign the bill.

The specter of special session to deal with the Northwest Airlines merger has already been raised this morning at the Capitol. In a conference committee dealing with the budget deficit, Senate Finance Chair Dick Cohen said since details of the merger won't emerge for weeks or months Gov. Pawlenty may need to "call us back into special session." Cohen went on to say he's no fan of special sessions but he wants to "do what we can to limit the harm of a merger."

Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Dan McElroy responded that it's too early to know if a special session would be necessary, but the governor will "advocate for Minnesota workers" and if the deal doesn't benefit the state "he will oppose it." McElroy said a special session has not been discussed but the administration will "keep it in mind." The other thing to keep in mind is that all 134 house members are up for re-election so they really don't want to sit in a special session all summer when they could be on the campaign trail. And special sessions tend to open up a can of worms, bonding projects and other issues that don't get done during regular session could pop up too.

When I asked NWA's Doug Steenland about his obligations to the state, he said the new Delta could either repay the state $245 million dollars or do what he has been talking to state leaders about: renegotiate a new deal. NWA is breaking one of the three requirements of the deal, moving the headquarters. Steenland said they could strike a new compact on the hub status and employment. Can you say special session? How about all summer long? I can't imagine this would be an easy or quick deal to strike.