I’m trying to figure out exactly the angle to take on Lori Sturdevant’s Sunday column bemoaning the fact that our state government is working the way our Constitution says it’s supposed to. 

It must be the whole “the GOP isn’t rolling over and acting like DFLers” thing again.

I know – it’s the same story as with every Lori Sturdevant column.

But today, we’re seeing a bunch of different pathologies at work.

Is it the failure of the education system?

The liberal lobbyist was fuming. Months of hard work had been rendered fruitless by a legislative bow to a veto threat. How could the DFL Legislature have allowed the Republican governor to take charge, the way he did last week? …The civics books may claim that state government’s three branches are equal. But as Minnesotans are witnessing anew this year, in practice, the executive outguns legislative branch. Governors usually get their way.

Forgive the young lobbyist for thinking otherwise. The past four years gave her the false impression that the Capitol’s power formula is two against one…When the 2006 election put DFL majorities in both chambers and kept Gov. Tim Pawlenty in the southwest corner office, some people thought two against one was still the operative rule. They believed the DFLers had taken over.

Which is, of course, stupid.  Our system of checks and balances not “two against one”, it’s “three against three”.    

If it’s not a commentary on education, perhaps it’s merely satire gone horribly awry?

Last week’s litter of vetoed bills demonstrated otherwise. So did the concessions DFLers made before sending bills Pawlenty’s way, in vain hope of winning his signature. Gone were resident tuition for immigrant kids…[PaleoDFLer former Senate leader Roger] Moe noted that when Pawlenty boiled the session’s budget debate down to one simple question — “Isn’t 10 percent enough?” — DFLers were left to respond with what sounded like quibbles. A third of Pawlenty’s proposed 10 percent biennial spending growth is one-time money. The rest just covers inflation in things government does now. New things — mass transit, early childhood education, property tax relief that lasts — need new revenue, particularly the kind that keeps up with the state’s growth. Today’s tax base doesn’t.

The case for “failed self-parody” is strong, but hardly airtight.

How about “inability to read numbers?”

So far, none of that has fazed Pawlenty, or, evidently, Minnesotans. The governor’s most recent approval rating in the Survey USA poll is holding at a healthy 56 percent. ..The May 7 issue of the Weekly Standard magazine hailed Minnesota’s governor as “a rising star in a party that’s been knocked back on its heels” and praised his March presentation to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington…With notices like that bolstering his constitutionally bestowed authority, Pawlenty goes into this last full week of the 2007 regular session positioned to be more cocky than conciliatory.

Vetoes of tax bills actually making the Governor more popular – after an election that the likes of Sturdevant took to mean that Minnesotans really were happy to be fiscally sodomized for a “better Minnesota”? 

Why – what could that possibly mean?

Perhaps that not only is Pawlenty nancying the ever-weakening DFL majority…:

DFLers aimed all session to force the governor to choose at the end between higher taxes or inadequate school funding. But last week, he appeared to be doing the maneuvering. Pawlenty was setting DFLers up for the final choice, between property tax relief and education.

…which is forcing the DFL and Sturdevant (pardon the redundancy) to resort to old tropes:

DFL legislators may have to revert to pretty much the same game plan the skimpy Senate majority followed four years ago: Point out signs that the state’s quality of life is slipping. Put on the governor’s desk reasonable remedies. If he rejects them, demand Republican votes for bills he will sign. Then make sure voters in November 2008 know who said no to a better state.

Er, yeah, LoriDFL.  What would us mere Minnesotans – the ones who think Pawlenty is doing a damn fine job, many of whom are celebrating the Governor’s vetoes – know about this state’s “quality of life?”

Some will call that strategy capitulation. In 2004, when House DFLers gained 13 seats, they called it successful.

Right, but the DFL is the majority on whom the people get to vent their dissatisfaction now. 

And vent, I believe, we shall.

Someone tell Lori.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 4:59 am and is filed under Campaign '08, 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.