Governor Dayton's Brinkmanship

Gov. Dayton and the Legislature: what happened, why and what comes next?

Excerpt:

Gov. Mark Dayton signed all the major spending bills state spending bills on Tuesday, which means Minnesota's two year state general fund budget of $46 billion is in place. Except he refused to fund the Legislature. It's a decision that sets up a summer's worth of political and legal disputes between the DFL governor and Republicans who control the Legislature.

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Republican legislators ... are already calling the whole maneuver an unconstitutional breach of separation of powers. A House Republican I talked to is confident a judge will quickly order money for ongoing operations because the Legislature is an essential function of government. If that's the case, then that money, plus reserves, will allow the House to ride it out for a long time. They could also dump DFL staff as nonessential.

Comment: The main players above: Kurt Daudt, Mark Dayton, Paul Gazelka

Mark Dayton vetoed the Legislature’s funding. Was it constitutional?:

Doug Wardlow predicted the court case would be open-and-shut.

“To veto the funding for the Legislature entirely like that, basically is voiding another co-equal branch of government and violating the separation of powers,” Wardlow said. “I don’t think (Dayton) has a leg to stand on, because he has completely undermined the ability of the Legislature to function.”

Dayton said he’s in the right — if on uncertain legal ground.

“The courts will ultimately have to resolve (the dispute),” said Dayton, who came up with the idea for vetoing the Legislature’s funding himself. “There isn’t case law directly applicable to this.”

His preferred outcome doesn’t involve the courts at all, but rather Republicans re-opening negotiations and agreeing to concessions. Then Dayton could call a special legislative session to re-pass the Legislature’s funding along with any concessions Republicans agreed to.

Update:

Constitutional fight escalates between Gov. Mark Dayton, Legislature

The conflict is of a piece with the grim direction of national and state politics at a time when traditions of compromise and comity have given way to demonstrations of raw power.XXX That’s the diagnosis of constitutional scholars who say the new dynamic between the political parties — witnessed in Washington for years and more recently in St. Paul — dictates that every dispute has the potential to become a constitutional death struggle.

“They have taken their literal power to its ultimate lengths. And that’s constitutional crisis,” said Mary Jane Morrison, a Mitchell Hamline Law School professor who wrote a book on the Minnesota constitution.

Minnesota politicos were still reeling Wednesday from Dayton’s maneuver, which he said was his own idea.

He signed 10 budget bills Tuesday totaling $46 billion that will fund the executive branch for the next two years. He also signed a $650 million tax cut and a borrowing package of nearly $1 billion for public works.

But then he used his line-item veto authority to strike out $130 million in operating funds for the Legislature, which could leave 201 state lawmakers and several hundred legislative employees without pay as soon as reserves run dry in a few months.

“This is unconstitutional,” House GOP spokeswoman Susan Closmore wrote in a Wednesday memo. “The branches of government are coequal. If one branch takes action that infringes too greatly — such as eliminating all funding for four years — on another branch of government, it violates the constitutional separation of powers.”

Constitutional scholars agreed that the spirit of the separation of powers does not allow one branch of government to effectively kill another by defunding it.

“This is an abuse of a power that contravenes the very system of a separation of powers,” said H. Jefferson Powell, a Duke University constitutional scholar. A veteran of the Clinton and Obama Justice Departments, Powell, while not specifically familiar with the circumstances in Minnesota, emphasized his expertise is in federal separation of powers cases.

“Maybe you have the raw power to do this, but plainly this is a misuse of power,” he said.

Update: Minn. Legislature moves to sue Gov. Dayton over funding cut

Minnesota legislators agreed Friday to hire a law firm to sue Gov. Mark Dayton after he zeroed out the operating budget of the House and Senate. Calling Dayton’s move an unconstitutional encroachment on the legislative branch of government, a Republican led panel of House members and senators agreed on a party-line vote to enter into negotiations with the high profile law firm of Kelley, Wolter & Scott, which has offered to cut their $650 per hour fee in half to do the work. Barring a last-minute resolution, a lawsuit seems likely. “We feel like we had no choice,” said Senate Majority Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, who said the Senate would run out of funds around August 1. The Legislature employs more than 500 people, both partisan and nonpartisan.

Update:

The Association of Government Accountability, represented by conservative legal activist Erick Kaardal, sues Dayton administration over Legislature defunding

A group of conservative activists is suing the administration of Gov. Mark Dayton over his decision to defund the Legislature as of July 1.

The Association of Government Accountability, represented by conservative legal activist Erick Kaardal, is arguing in Ramsey County District Court that a 2016 constitutional amendment that sets legislative pay requires that state government pay lawmakers.

Dayton signed 10 bills last week that set the state’s next two-year, $46 billion budget, but he used his line item veto authority to strike out spending for the operating budgets of both the House and Senate. He wants the Republican-controlled Legislature to renegotiate deals over immigrant driver’s licenses; education policy; and, tax cuts.

Kaardal argues that the constitutional amendment on legislative salaries requires the Dayton administration to pay lawmakers. Voters authorized an outside group called the Legislative Salary Council to set lawmaker pay in the last election by approving a constitutional amendment that ended the practice of lawmakers voting on their own salaries. Details of suit

“It’s an extraordinary breach of trust of the public. It’s an extraordinary breach of the constitution,” Kaardal said at a Monday news conference on the steps of the Capitol.

Both the House and Senate will run out of money in a few months and not have enough money to pay lawmakers and staff; the Legislature is in the process of obtaining outside counsel to sue Dayton over what it calls an unconstitutional abuse of power.

Minnesota Legislature hires attorney to sue Gov. Mark Dayton over funding veto https://t.co/6ytHjeoKC3 via @pioneerpress

— James Peet (@jrpeet) June 12, 2017

Legislature will file suit against Dayton on Tuesday, after meeting concludes without compromise https://t.co/AAkTxcEXwu

— James Peet (@jrpeet) June 13, 2017

Mark Dayton hires former MN Supreme Court justice to defend him in legislative suit https://t.co/laULdZEYSq via @pioneerpress

— James Peet (@jrpeet) June 15, 2017

A Ramsey County judge ordered the Minnesota Legislature funded. Read why. https://t.co/bvFeQuswsw via @pioneerpress

— James Peet (@jrpeet) June 28, 2017

Pretty good day for Minnesotans! pic.twitter.com/hOzJJ9QYvp

— Kurt Daudt (@kdaudt) July 19, 2017

Judge strikes down Gov. Mark Dayton's veto of Legislature's budget https://t.co/xWpglyU5EX

— James Peet (@jrpeet) July 19, 2017

Mark Dayton - Crybaby!

Image source

My blog title bluntly reveals how I feel about the guy!

• His top prioirty is 4 year old kindergarden! Get a clue! My wife who is a software VP never even went to kindergarden! I remember K myelf. It was half a day. And after half a day I really really wanted to be home! (Recapitulation ... at 65 after half a day of work .... I want to be home!) And what about the infrastructure needed for more classrooms for 4 year olds! Not even thought about! 
• Last week's drama. The Senate leader (a Democrat) and the House leader (a Republican) meet at the Governor's mansion to hammer out a budget deal. They emerge announcing an agreement and he is no where to be seen! 
• And he is angry at the Republicans! Get a clue! The Democratic dominated Senate passed the bill this AM!
• And the Governer plans to veto the bill and send the session into overtime! The capital itself is under renovation and there is likely no place for them to meet. The Governor says they can meet outside in lawn chairs under a tent! What's this guy drinking!?
• Speaking of drinking, honestly he looks like he's been drinking. He slurs his words and mops his brow and looks like a doofus at news conferences!
• Government shutdown? Bring it on! Egg in the crybaby's face! 

Governor Mark Dayton,: "one of the most idiotic things I've ever seen"

Gov. Dayton calls new Wisconsin tourism TV ads 'idiotic' Excerpt:

Gov. Mark Dayton, who rarely misses a chance to bash Minnesota's neighbors to the east, has branded a TV ad campaign for Wisconsin tourism as "one of the most idiotic things I've ever seen." The ads play off the 1980 disaster movie spoof "Airplane." Actor Robert Hays and former NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who appeared in the film, are reunited in the cockpit of an airplane that's flying low over scenes of Wisconsin tourism. "I know! But Wisconsin is so beautiful in the summer!" Hays says in one ad, after a control tower warning that he's flying too low. He and Abdul-Jabbar proceed to trade memorable quips from the movie.

Comment: They are kind of lame!

Spend most of the year in St. Pete, pay the government in St. Paul.

Minnesota's Snowbird Tax
Excerpt:

You may have heard it can get cold in Minnesota in January, or for that matter in April. Last week the temperature dropped to seven below zero in the Twin Cities, which is one reason many Midwesterners head to Florida or Arizona for the winter. But now Governor Mark Dayton wants to tax the snowbirds even if they are no longer legally state residents. "There is a snowbird tax—absolutely," the Democratic Governor told reporters the other day. "It's one of the unfairnesses that somebody can spend six months and one day out of the state and pay no state personal income taxes and come back here and take advantage of all the state has to offer for five months and 29 days. So, yes, there's a snowbird tax." Details are sketchy, but the idea is to tax these nonresidents on their income from stocks, bonds, capital gains and dividends if they spend at least 60 days in Minnesota a year. Income earned in the state is already taxed regardless of residence status, but many retirees or vacationers own a home in the state and live there only for the summer. The new tax would hit income not earned in Minnesota by those who don't currently spend the requisite six months and a day in the state to qualify as a taxable resident. So, for example, if you returned to the land of 10,000 taxes only for July and August, you'd suddenly have to pay the taxman in St. Paul on dividend checks sent to your main residence in St. Pete.

Comment: We're not leaving because 2 of our 3 kids are here (one is soon to move to either Boston or Oakland).

Gov Dayton: Pull tabs in grocery stores

E-Pulltabs Coming Up Short In Funding Vikings Stadium
Excerpt:

The revenue coming in from the electronic pulltab games are not enough to fund the new Vikings stadium.

But state leaders say pulltab revenues will get better, even as the budget report issued on Wednesday said the money isn’t coming in anywhere near as rapidly as predicted.

Gov. Mark Dayton says he’s not overly concerned, but that the state might need to start marketing electronic pulltab gambling — not just at bars, but even grocery stores.

“There are enterprises like Cub Foods that are qualified and eligible to allow these games,” Dayton said. “And we are going to need somebody to go out and market these opportunities. So I think we will catch up. We are slightly behind now, but we’ll get there.”

Comment: Folly! See earlier posts: Electronic pull-tabs: Revenue Reality Check and Flaws in the Stadium plan

Minnesota: Open door for Democrats

One-Party Control Opens States to Partisan Rush
Excerpt:

In Minnesota, where a budget fight last year between a Republican-led Legislature and the Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, led to a shutdown of state government for two weeks, the governor seemed buoyed.

“We’ll trade gridlock for progress,” said Mr. Dayton, who added that his plans included increasing taxes on the richest Minnesotans and devoting more money to education. Still, Mr. Dayton, whose term is up in two years, sounded a note of caution even as he huddled with aides to strategize after the election results were in.

“I said to my staff, ‘The easier two years are over, and the harder two years are now beginning, because we have the added responsibility to lead,’ ” Mr. Dayton said. “And this is a responsibility I welcome, but given the challenges the state faces and our country faces these days, it’ll be a lot of hard work.”

Comment: Image source. Re: "Minnesota: Open door for Democrats" = for better or for worse?

In rare agreement with Governor Dayton

Dayton vetoes fireworks bill, citing hazards

Excerpt:

Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a bill to allow the sale and use of a wide array of consumer fireworks, including aerial rockets and firecrackers. He said in a veto letter, issued less than 90 minutes before the midnight deadline on Saturday, that it's "government's foremost responsibility to protect the safety and the well-being of its citizens." The bill, sponsored by Rep. John Kriesel, R-Cottage Grove, and Sen. Mike Jungbauer, R-East Bethel, allowed the sale and use of the full range of consumer fireworks in Minnesota, but only between June 1 and July 7. He noted that after Minnesota legalized ground-based fireworks such as sparklers and small cones in 2002, injuries have spiked, particularly among young people.

Comment: Because I have a neighbor who thinks it is appropriate to launch bottle rockets without any consideration as to what house they may hit or whose yard they land in. (I've visited and talked directly to the man and also called the police about the issue another time). The sound of a bottle rocket hitting my siding is an irritant.

Governor Doofus Shuts Down Minnesota

Governor Doofus Shuts Down Minnesota

Excerpt:

Governor Mark Dayton, a Democrat, shut down state offices this week in Minnesota by not signing on to the largest budget in state history. It's the stuff of theater of the absurd, and ironic too: It puts more than 24,000 state workers out of work temporarily, dealt them by a wild-eyed governor they helped elect. Irony never had it so good.

At issue here in Minnesota (my summertime home) is a slightly goofy governor's proposal to foist an even higher tax on "the wealthy," tagging Gopher State sluggards with the second highest income tax rate in the nation. The rich. Who needs' em?

Besides the second highest tax brackets in the nation, Minnesota suffers from the third highest income tax on business income, too, at 9.5 percent at the top tier. High taxes are a legacy of the long-in-power Democrats' hostility to business in this bone-chilling state.

Well known in corporate circles, if not by local liberal news media, is the confluence of sky-high taxes (called the Land of 10,000 Taxes) is that highly respected home-bred, state-domiciled businesses, such as 3M, put down roots routinely in other states, as Boeing did in South Carolina, based on the high tide of taxes and regulations. Oh yes, and also on whether unions' swagger is less than in this dues-coercive, non-right-to-work state. Progressivism here, it's made terrific headway. Quietly, without a lot of suspicion of its real aims.

Comment: Good article

Will Dayton blink?

Short take: An early bet on GOP in budget in stalemate

Excerpt:

Friday was Day 1 Without A Salary for more than 23,000 workers in Minnesota. And while their adrenaline is running high, financial hardship is a reality, especially in one-paycheck households.

Their hardship will make the kind-hearted Dayton hard-pressed to hold out for an extended period of time in the budget face-off.

In contrast, key Republican constituencies will face some hardships and inconveniences — businesses needing various licenses or permits, for example. But the pain won’t be felt on the same scale.

Dayton’s leverage in budget negotiations now depends on how long he’s willing to keep core constituencies out of work.

The soft shutdown gave Republicans an advantage and may allow them to walk away with a spending cuts-heavy budget and a reason to say “We prevailed” in 2012.

Comment: How the State shutdown impacts us - Nada!

• We don't use the HOV lanes
  
• We won't need to turn in a lotto ticket
  
• We aren't in need of any licenses
  
• I can only think of a handful of times in 16 years I've stopped at an Interstate rest stop
  
• I don't care if the race track or the zoo is closed
  

Dayton needs to cave ... he does not have the bargaining chip. He only won the gubernatorial election by 9,000 votes!

9th things 1st: Stadium bill higher priority than the budget!

Dayton: Vikings stadium bill could come before budget-balancing deal

Excerpt:

Gov. Mark Dayton said Wednesday he would be open to signing a Minnesota Vikings stadium bill before the budget is done.

Lawmakers have introduced bills to get the Vikings a new stadium, but there haven’t been any hearings on the issue yet.

Dayton said he has been in constant contact with Chairman of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission Ted Mondale about a new stadium. He said, as he has before, that a new stadium would be “very worthwhile project" and could create jobs.

Dayton said lawmakers shouldn't expect a possible new stadium to be a “bargaining chip” that Republicans could use against him as budget negotiations loom. Finding a workable solution for team, he said, rest squarely with with the Legislature.

“If we don’t have a stadium and the Vikings leave, that’s their responsibility not mine,” Dayton said.

Comment: The Vikes could play in Iowa for all I care! Balance the budget first!

Dayton's "make work" stadium plan

Dayton: "We need a people's stadium"

Excerpt:

To work-vested construction workers visiting the state Capitol, Gov. Mark Dayton Tuesday pitched his vision for digging the state out of the building doldrums: a new Vikings stadium and spending on state buildings.

"We need a people's stadium. Not a Vikings stadium. Not somebody else's stadium. The people of Minnesota's stadium, the way the Metrodome was," Dayton said. "We need to do that again with the right kind of financing."

He mentioned funding it, at least in part, with "surcharges on tickets and souvenir and food and beverages" to pay off construction bonds with "not a dollar from general funds."

The governor has long expressed his interest in inking a deal to get the Vikings a new stadium. He has not put a specific proposal on the table. Nor have lawmakers who have long promised their ideas would be forthcoming.

Dayton said the new stadium would not only allow professional sports events but would also put construction workers back to work. The construction industry has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn.

Comment: Image: People's Stadium, Budapest

I doubt that a new stadium can be built without raising taxes. Economists discredit the job creation argument:

Because local governments must balance their budgets, a stadium subsidy requires some combination of increases in taxes and utility fees and reductions in other expenditures, all of which depress employment. A rough rule of thumb is that $100,000 in higher taxes or reduced expenditures causes the loss of one job. If local government pays $180 million to finance the stadium the community will lose about 1,800 jobs, compared to the estimated 1,350 new jobs to build the stadium.

Zero!

mngop.com

Comment: Democrats behind Governor Dayton's tax plan! Link has a list of MN Representatives and Senators.