Almanac: At the Capitol

Last January, I was asked to make a wish list for the coming legislative session which has now (maybe?) come to a close. While I had a number of specific policy initiatives I wanted to see lawmakers act upon, I had one overriding piece of advice: Think big.

Well, some folks at the Capitol must have been listening because there was some big thinking going on up there these past four months about the environment, taxes, transportation, and education. Seeking to rectify the growing regressiveness of the Minnesota's tax system, Democrats passed legislation raising income taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans while providing critically needed relief for working families and homeowners living on fixed incomes trying to keep up with annual double-digit property tax increases, themselves a result of deep and regressive cuts in Minnesota's state aid to cities. They also proposed ways to fund mass transit — the Twin Cities are quickly turning into the most congested urban area in the country — and to lower the costs of attending state colleges.

Unfortunately, the Governor was thinking big, too, except he wasn't thinking big about the state, he was thinking big about his own personal ambitions. Taking a page from the Bush playbook, he vetoed proposals that had the overwhelming backing of Minnesotans — like the proposed changes in income taxes — or forced the DFL to back off other proposals for transportation and education that also had strong public support. All so he can head to the 2008 Republican national convention and be able to proclaim that he kept his "no new taxes" pledge (not to be confused, of course, with a "no new fees" pledge he apparently did not take), even at the cost of the future of the state he purportedly leads. While this may prove to be smart politics in the long run (though I personally doubt his gambit is going to pay off), from a policy standpoint, it is nothing short of disgraceful. Like Bush, a chastened Pawlenty last fall proclaimed that the election had opened his eyes to the need to walk, yea, in the paths of bi-partisanship. Since then — again like Bush — he has continued to operate in the narrowly ideological, highly partisan mode that characterized his first term.

Still, the session was not without its bright spots. In terms of environmental policy it was, arguably, the most significant in Minnesota's history. From the historic "25-by-25" renewable energy bill spearheaded by Sen. Ellen Anderson (DFL-St. Paul), to initiatives to cap and then reduce carbon emissions, to an energy efficiency bill that mandates that utilities cut their use of fossil fuels, it's been a good year for green legislation. Fortunately, Pawlenty chose not to stand in the way of these bills.

On the other hand, none of these green policy initiatives entails an increase in taxes or spending, so his acquiescence was hardly a profile in courage. In a previous blog I referred to Pawlenty as Macho Man; at the moment, Little Big Man seems more apt. Given the field of midgets currently clogging up the race for the GOP Presidential nomination, Pawlenty's smallness may prove beautiful — at least among that party's dwindling base. I suspect the general electorate will not be similarly impressed. To paraphrase an old saying, a Governor all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package.

It's a question I've been asking lots of Capitol observers and most seem to agree that Gov. Pawlenty won this session. Who would have thought it after Republicans took a beating and Pawlenty barely won after Hatch's implosion. The governor's supplemental budget called for a 9.8% spending increase; before any line-item reductions the legislature ended up sending him a 10.1% increase. Pretty darn close after he went around saying 10% is enough and that's what he got. He also didn't have to swallow any tax increases. Right behind Pawlenty is probably Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller. Frankly, it seems to me and many others, that he got way more than the House. Case in point, Democrats' constant top priority: education. After the February forecast everyone was perplexed why Poge created this urgent case for special education funding. It wasn't exactly the campaign buzz word. In the end Poge and Clark got the most money — $326 million for special ed — and wouldn't you know their districts stand to greatly benefit from that money. 2% and 1% on the funding formula is shocking to many especially after the governor's budget proposed as much as 4% and 4%. One liberal just told me "there will be hell to pay" for the measely education budget. Nursing homes aren't too happy either. The high expectations were very hard for Democrats to fulfill. The new Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson Kelliher probably just needed to finish on time to claim victory. But there isn't too much to brag about on her previously well-articulated priorities of education, health care and property tax cuts.

I'm a Democrat. This means that I should be incensed right now at the results of the recently-concluded legislative session, right?

Not so much.

Don't get me wrong, I think the DFL caucuses got thrashed in the public relations war. While DFL leaders were and remain on the right and just and upstanding side of the issues, they crafted no coherent narrative of why their stands are the right way forward for Minnesota. There are issues at the leadership and communications levels that will need to be addressed if the DFL hopes for more success in 2008, both at the Capitol and at the ballot box.

But let's pull back and put this session in perspective. Raise your hand if you've ever heard the saying "representative democracy is a bad form of government — it's just better than anything else out there..." or something like it. It holds true at times like these. Governmental deadlock is annoying, for sure, and has short-term detrimental effects. But in the longer run, that deadlock and the checks-and-balances system that causes it are gifts to us from the Founding Fathers. Co-equal branches of government, especially those controlled by opposing parties, mean consensus must be reached for anything to get done. Deadlock, committee process, parliamentary procedure, and even arcane traditions like the U.S. Senate's filibuster mean that no one group can shove an agenda into law through sheer force of will and arm-twisting. And those factors leave us where we are today, with a state government that hasn't done much to help where they might have, but hasn't done much to hurt either.

Consider also where the Legislature was a few years ago. Gone are the days of the State Senate stonewalling on things like Michele Bachmann's anti-civil-rights constitutional amendement and voter suppression. Instead, the pressure is on the Republican minorities and Governor Pawlenty to support or defeat DFL priorities.

Lost in the bloviation and crowing from such conservative luminaries as my AATC Brain Trust colleagues, House Minority Leader Marty Seifert and David Strom of the Taxpayers' League, is what marginal DFL-sponsored tax increases would have paid for — a sound fiscal policy that would have fixed disintegrating roads, provided relief from property tax increases by bringing high-earning Minnesotans' tax rates in line with the middle and working classes, and pushed more funding into classrooms across the state.

Many of these initiatives were defeated. But there's still another legislative session coming next year, and the DFL will still control both chambers of the Legislature. I would much rather control the debate, the issues, and the agenda heading into an election than be forced, as former Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson was, to stonewall against a reactionary right-wing fusion of public policy and electoral strategy.

The public demands a progressive, people-powered public policy regime. It's only a matter of time — and a little improvement here and there in the DFL's PR machine. A frustrating session? To be sure. But worth being angry about? As Martin Luther King said and Senator Barack Obama echoed recently, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Right now, that arc just needs a little bit more organized pressure from DFL leaders and their supporters.