Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n
Governor Dayton appointed Lt. Governor Tina Flint Smith to Al Franken\u2019s seat in the United States Senate.\u00a0 By operation of the Minnesota state constitution, the President of the Senate, Michelle Fischbach, was automatically promoted to Lt. Governor.<\/p>\n
Her promotion created a vacancy in the Senate to be filled in the next Special Election this Fall.\u00a0 Meanwhile, there is no President of the Senate and Republicans say they won\u2019t appoint one, they want Fischbach to continue filling both roles.\u00a0 They offered to call a special session so Dayton could appoint a Democrat to the Lt. Governor spot but Democrats declined since they want the tactical advantage of an evenly divided Senate.\u00a0 Even the Star Trib thought that was a dumb move<\/a>.\u00a0 If the controversy goes to the Democrat \u201cjustices\u201d on the state Supreme Court, we know they\u2019ll rule the Republican seat is vacant because that creates a deadlock in the Senate which gives Democrats a tactical advantage to extort concessions.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the thing \u2013 what if the Senate meets on February 20th<\/sup> and cannot pick a President? \u00a0What if Lt. Governor Fischbach resigns as Lt. Governor to run for her seat in the Special Election?\u00a0 Then there is no Lt. Governor and a stalemate in the Senate \u2013 the worst of both worlds, right?\u00a0 No, it gets better.\u00a0 If there\u2019s no President of the Senate, there\u2019s nobody to preside over the Senate, nobody to schedule debate, nobody to take votes, nobody to decide whether legislation passes.\u00a0 The Senate does nothing this year.<\/p>\n
And since Governor Dayton vetoed the Legislature\u2019s funding last year, the Legislature is running on fumes.\u00a0 When those are gone and the stalemated Senate can\u2019t vote for new funding, the Legislature shuts down and when that happens, there\u2019s no money appropriated to run the Executive, Judicial or Legislative Branches so the entire state government shuts down. We\u2019ll save a bundle.<\/p>\n