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<\/p>\nRemember last session’s’ spending debate?<\/p>\n
When the DFL – which had a crushing majority in the Minnesota State House, pushed through a massive $435 million dollar tax hike.<\/p>\n
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They squeedged the increase through<\/a> on a couple of very <\/em>close votes; the final vote in the House was 71-63. \u00a0Bear in mind that the DFL controlled 87 seats<\/em> up until this month. \u00a0Tha’ts 87\/47 in favor of the DFL; almost, but not quite, veto-proof.<\/p>\n And in the Minnesota Senate? \u00a0Much worse; the DFL \u00a0had a 47-21 veto-proof majority<\/em> in the Senate.<\/p>\n So when it came time for up-and-down votes on the Dems’ pet tax proposal, you’d think – given not only the DFL’s fabled unity, but the power of the mandate with which they’d been sent to Saint Paul to refudiate the Pawlenty government the previous fall, that the votes in favor of the bill might have been 87\/47 in the House (or maybe 93\/44, given the power of the “moderate Republicans”), and 47\/21 in the Senate.<\/p>\n To have performed any worse would certainly have been a sign that the DFL was splintering under the pressure of working with their mandate.<\/p>\n Right?<\/p>\n Well, of course it didn’t work out that way. \u00a0The DFL carried the bill through the House by 71. \u00a0Sixteen DFLers crossed over to vote against the bill.<\/p>\n And before that? \u00a0In an epic bit of political theater, the Senate had to do all but send the Mounties out to find Tarryl Clark to drag her into the Senate chamber to get the bill passed by one vote<\/em>. \u00a0A total of twelve <\/em>DFL senators crossed over to vote against the bill.<\/p>\n And this, at the height of the post-Obama afterglow. \u00a0When people seemed Happy To Pay For A Better Minnesota. \u00a0Less than a month after the first appearance of the Tea Party, when it still seemed (because the media was trying to paint it) \u00a0like a fringe-y little brushfire.<\/p>\n Quiz Question: \u00a0Did this loss of 16 votes in the House, and 12 in the Senate, mean that…:<\/p>\n a)<\/strong> The DFL was fragmenting?:<\/strong> The DFL legislators saw the Tea Party rallies, three weeks early, anticipated the upcoming summer of anger at the Obamacare Town Halls, and were consumed with a wave of originalist fervor, which Larry Pogemiller and Margaret Anderson Kelliher managed to hold together by only the barest of margins, in an epic feat of legislative engineering?<\/p>\n b) That was the plan?<\/strong>: Some DFLers from outstate and outer-tier suburban districts felt nervous about piling taxes on their already-disgruntling districts; they made their reservations known to their caucus’ \u00a0House and Senate leadership, which did the math – not only for the bill<\/em>, but for the next round of elections. \u00a0They figured out how many votes were safe, not only for the bill<\/em>, but for future elections; they realized that some DFLers \u00a0– especially some of the ones that had just won squeaker elections in the previous two cycles \u00a0in usually-GOP-districts – were going to need to be able to deny association with the bill to their voters. \u00a0The did the math, and made sure they had the votes to both <\/em>pass the bills and <\/em> give their more potentially-vulnerable members <\/a>the out they knew they were going to need?<\/p>\n Answer? B, mostly; of course there were DFLers who had objections<\/a> – but for the most part,notwithstanding the media’s push to impart drama on the proceedings, \u00a0the votes came as no surprise to anyone in legislative leadership.<\/p>\n Of course, drama sells newspapers.<\/p>\n