The DFL’s mad rush to finish the session – and jam through extra tax and spending bills by whatever means necessary – drew criticism from at least one media figure; Larry Schumacher of the St. Cloud Times:

The last two hours of debate on the floor of the House of Representatives made me nauseous and angry.

I don’t know if House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Democrats’ decision to run roughshod over the GOP minority to finish on time was within the rules, but I know it was wrong.

House Republicans were stalling, running the clock out to force a special session. Many of them believed House Democrats would take the blame if the people’s work didn’t get done on time.

That was just as wrong. But Democrats’ poor clock management over the last week gave Republicans that power. They didn’t see until too late that they were never going to agree 100 percent with Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and they waited until Monday to press ahead when they could’ve been finishing up over the weekend.

Gary from Let Freedom Ring responds:

The DFL also held up the most important bills to the last second in an attempt for them to pressure GOP legislators. They gambled that they could create a chaos that would lead some GOP legislators to jump ship. They gambled wrong.

Let’s also examine the consequences of the legislation that the DFL passed:

• The DFL passed legislation that would’ve raised a big assortment of taxes to the tune of $5 billion, which would’ve killed Minnesota’s economy in a hurry.
• The DFL passed an HHS omnibus bill that will get Minnesota fined $26 million for failing to comply with federal welfare guidelines.
• The DFL passed the Dream Act before dropping it out of the Higher Education conference report. The DFL bet that Minnesotans would agree with them that we should subsidize illegal immigrants’ college tuitions. Minnesotans from all across the state told them they wouldn’t.

But Monday night’s shameful displays make me just as uneasy. For all the cynics’ desire to scapegoat our politicians for everything that’s wrong today, I think Monday night says more about us than them.

I appreciate Larry’s introspection but I’ll respectfully disagree that Monday night’s floor session says more about us than them. I put the vast majority of the blame for Monday night’s trainwreck squarely on Maggie Kelliher’s & Tony Sertich’s shoulders. And on Larry Pogemiller’s shoulders, too.

I’ll give ’em a break.

They were so used to getting their way for so long, like spoiled children, they can’t imagine anyone telling them “boo” for trying to get their way now by any means fair or foul.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Monday, May 28th, 2007 at 3:49 am and is filed under Democrat Party, Minnesota Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.