The Session

The 2004 Legislative Session will be getting underway today. It's going to be a doozy.

It will pit Governor Pawlenty - hot off a very successful freshman year in office - against a DFL-controlled Senate that is down, but by no means out - and desperately yearns to recapture the unfettered hegemony of its one-party glory days.

We should expect big things from this legislature.

Or...maybe not.:

So while there may be sound and fury in the early going over the most controversial issues, this also might be a session in which few things are settled and legislators go home by their unofficial Easter deadline, a goal seldom realized in recent years.

There's also a chance that legislators will decide to put some of the most explosive disputes -- death penalty, tough new tax and expenditure limitations and a gay marriage ban -- on the November ballot for voters to resolve.

Which, of course, will be the most interesting outcome of all.

Despite all the media attention to divisive issues, recent opinion polls seem to show that the public is not overwhelmingly eager for any big changes in particular, according to at least one veteran observer, Sarah Janecek, editor of the Directory, a biennial guide to the Legislature.

"Nothing seems to be really resonating -- the public isn't clamoring for anything," Janecek said. "There is no clear mandate to do anything but bond," given the strong local interests for projects ranging from commuter rail to state college campus projects to Minnesota Zoo improvements. "The conventional wisdom in and out of the Legislature: Leave well enough alone."

Where was it written that Sara Janacek is the token Republican pundit?

The next question is interesting:

"Among the key political questions to be answered: Should DFLers allow the various ballot questions to go before the voters in November, in the hope that an agenda that could be portrayed as pro-death, anti-gay and anti-government will galvanize the liberal and moderate base, and in the process help the Democratic presidential candidate and DFL House members?

Janecek says some Republicans are worried that a batch of conservative ballot initiatives could 'crank the opposition up beyond a fever pitch.'"

Weren't they worried about this last year?

The Strib includes a digest of analysis of specific issues from the paper's stable of political reporters. Issues by issue, here's what they saw:

• Death Penalty: Conrad DeFiebre says "The Legislators will listen to Gov. Tim Pawlenty's plan to bring the death penalty back to Minnesota nearly a century after it was abolished, but they are more likely to go for life-without-parole sentences for the most dangerous sexual predators." Mitch says: I have a hunch that this may be the real motive for the GOP anyway. They'd never get the DFL to agree to reform Minnesota's "catch and release" penal system by asking for something as pedestrian as sensible, responsible reforms. But if those reforms are presented as a fall-back position to the death penalty - something that I doubt will pass, no matter how outraged we are about the disappearance and apparent murder of Dru Sjodin - it might work.
• .08 BAC for DWI: DeFiebre says about the potential for lowering the drunk driving limit: "With the scheduled financial penalties mounting to about $70 million by 2007 and highway deaths on an upward trend, there's growing consensus that the state can no longer afford to condone driving at levels of intoxication that nearly everyone agrees cause impairment. More and more policymakers, including Gov. Pawlenty and House Speaker Steve Sviggum, say it's time for a change." Mitch says: Unfortunately, probably true. The reduction in BAC limits is stupid, but money talks, and principle walks.
• Commuter Rail: DeFiebre, again: "Prospects appear good for Northstar. And House Transportation Finance Chairman Bill Kuisle, R-Rochester, said he expects passage of the busways. As for roads, there will be attempts to put as much as $100 million for projects into the bonding bill. Pawlenty says he can implement his plan to add privately built toll lanes to metro freeways without legislative action. But some legislators may try to block the plan, at least until "sane" lanes on Interstate Hwy. 394 are opened to toll-paying solo drivers and the change is evaluated" Mitch says: I think it's a big win for Pawlenty. I think the Northstar Line has serious potential to be self-supporting - which would go a long way toward stealing the transit issue from the DFL (and their fixation on light rail and pie-in-the-sky schemes based on massive social engineering). Meantime, the toll lane plan will give us a start toward moving road construction toward being user-fee supported - which makes Mitch's inner libertarian all warm and fuzzy.
• Stadiums: DeFiebre says "The committee [appointed by Pawlenty] is set to deliver its full recommendations to Pawlenty on Monday. But that will only set the stage for what promises to be a vigorous debate in the Legislature over public subsidies for billionaire owners and millionaire athletes versus the teams' role in Minnesota's quality of life." Mitch says this is going to be a high-profile exercise in triviality. We'd be nuts to play the game - the state government should not be subsidizing stadiums any more than they should be subsidizing any other form of recreation or, for that matter, subsidizing poverty.
• Gay Marriage - Mark Brunswick says "House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, predicts the House will pass a bill to put some version of the [anti gay-marriage constitutional] amendment on the ballot this fall. The issue has great currency right now on a national level, with conservatives pushing President Bush to make a more prominent statement on the sanctity of marriage. It is also believed to be a strong election year get-out-the-vote issue. New Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar has not signaled how he feels about same-sex marriage but says his caucus is very cautious about tinkering with any constitutional amendments." Mitch says this will be a bellwether issue to determine exactly how far to the right Minnesota has swung in the last decade. As to Johnson's remark - this is going to be interesting. I'd suspect that most of the outstate DFL - including Johnson's constituents in bucolic Willmar - have very different feelings about this issue than do most of the DFL's metro-area far-left base. They may be stuck between a rock and a hard place; they don't dare go soft on a core issue (perhaps the core issue) for their gay base, but the outstate DFL will have a hard time going along with it. This will be interesting.
• Expanding Gambling to pay for a Stadium: Mark Brunswick says: "Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, a sponsor of the Canterbury Park bill, is optimistic about its chances in the Senate, but Gov. Pawlenty hasn't supported expanded gambling proposals in the past and in all likelihood will continue to feel that way.

  Look for the stadium debate to enter the picture, with the possibility that casino-owning Indian tribes will be asked to contribute to a stadium as a potential counter to expansion. Some tribal leaders are up for election in the spring and a compromise may not sit well with their members." Mitch says it'll never happen. Minnesota's puritan instincts cross party lines.

• Health Care - Patricia Lopez says: ""Major health care reforms often have taken several sessions, and action is more likely in 2005. Pawlenty's Web site is up and running. Whether he will be able to use it to cut costs for state employees' drug purchases depends in part on how much opposition it gets from the federal government, which opposes reimportation." Mitch says this, along with holding the line on the budget (and succeeding at it) may well be the issue that makes or breaks Pawlenty as a national politician. Even if he "loses", he could gain the sort of national exposure, on a very ecumenical issue, that could make him a bipartisan household name. Watch for Pawlenty to ride this like a mechanical bull.
• Spending Caps: Lopez says: "Rigid caps will be a tough sell to all but the most fiscally conservative legislators, but many are expressing interest in other types of tax and expenditure limitations already adopted by more than half the states, as are administration officials." Mitch says - hard sell. I bet this one gets dropped to gain capital on other issues.
• Standards: Norman Draper says "Social studies will be a tougher sell for Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke than the language arts and math standards she helped shepherd through the Legislature last year. Revisions that give teachers more choices and tilt the standards more toward the political center have muted some of the criticism that erupted over them last fall. But big issues remain: Are the hundreds of requirements too bulky? How much will it cost financially strapped schools to implement them? Will teachers have the time and students have the smarts to get through them?" Mitch says this is the social battlefield of this session - and yet another issue where Pawlenty's long-term interests are served, win or lose. Beating the teachers' union or fighting them to the end - either result works.
• Abortion - Jean Hopfensperger says "Prospects look good for abortion opponents, who now boast friends in House leadership, Senate leadership and the governor's office. A child support overhaul is in a good position to move forward. Senior citizens and parents of disabled children also have the ear of committee chairs in both houses; finding the money to help them is the problem. Restoring cuts to child care will be tough." Mitch says this is an issue that the relatively moderate Pawlenty can afford to give a little on, to buy votes for issues that are more clear-cut for him. I'll bet he does.

We'll see. It'll be an interesting session.

Posted by Mitch at February 2, 2004 05:02 AM