I Just finished reading the main majority opinion by Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, which I'll summarize and excerpt below. I'll do the same for the concurrences and dissents when I read them.

Magnuson's ruling is very clear and readable and I commend you to the whole shmear (it's 21 pages), but the excerpt below will get the heart of it.

The ruling does not really clarify what the executive and legislative branches are supposed to do about the deficit that remains in the wake of this ruling. I'll try to shed some light on that before the day is out, but first here's what Magnuson wrote.

After rehashing what happened at the end of the 2009 session and how it lead to the unallotment, Magnuson explains that the key question is whether language that says the governor can reduce allotments if revenues are "less than anticipated" and not enough to cover expenditures "for the remainder of the biennium." At what point can the governor conclude that revenues are less than anticipated and compared to what previous moment of anticipation? Since Pawlenty decided to unallot before the old biennium was even over, can "the remainder of the biennium" be the whole biennium?

If the language of the statute was unambiguous, the court could decide the case based on that. Both sides in the case have given an interpretation of the language that favors their side. Magnuson writes that the plaintiffs' interpretation of the language is "reasonable" while the interpretation by the governor's side is "not unreasonable." Hmm.

Faced with two interpretations, neither of unreasonable, the court must move to the next level of analysis: What did the Legislature intend? Magnuson and the four-justice majority believe that, when it created the unallotment power in 1939, the Legislature intended for the power to be used after the start of the bienniumn, after a balanced budget had been approved by the normal means, if the state experienced a revenue shortfall that would otherwise produce a deficit.

The key is that in 2009, a balanced budget was never approved. Pawlenty signed the appropriations bill but vetoed the revenue bill that would provided enough revenue, at least based on then-current projections, to pay for the appropriations. So the budget was never balanced.

If you can stand a couple of pages worth of the opinion itself -- the legalese is really not thick at all, here is the key passage from the majority opinion. (It's pages 19-21 for those of you who may have opened the full opinion.

Magnuson: "In the context of this limited constitutional grant of gubernatorial authority with regard to appropriations, we cannot conclude that the Legislature intended to authorize the executive branch to use the unallotment process to balance the budget for an entire biennium when balanced spending and revenue legislation has not been initially agreed upon by the Legislature and the Governor. Instead, we conclude that the Legislature intended the unallotment authority to serve the more narrow purpose of providing a mechanism by which the executive branch could address unanticipated deficits that occur after a balanced budget has previously been enacted."

Appellants‘ interpretation of the unallotment statute envisions a much broader role for the executive branch in the creation of biennial budgets than the process established by the constitution. Under appellants‘ interpretation of the unallotment statute, the executive branch has authority to modify spending decisions previously enacted into law if revenues projected (apparently at any time) for the biennium fall short of the spending authority in appropriation bills passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, whether the shortfall results from revenues lower than projected, a gubernatorial veto of a revenue bill, or legislative failure to pass adequate revenue legislation.

The unallotment authority so construed would result in an alternative budget-creation mechanism that bypasses the constitutionally prescribed process. There is nothing to suggest that was the purpose for which the unallotment statute was enacted.

On the contrary, it appears clear to us that the object to be attained, see Minn. Stat. § 645.16(4), was the creation of a mechanism for adjusting expenditures, to be available in the event of an unanticipated revenue shortfall after enactment of a balanced budget. This narrow purpose and interpretation is consistent with and reflected in all prior use of the statute. See Peter S. Wattson, Legislative History of Unallotment Power 4-5, 9, 11 (June 29, 2009).

The requirement of a balanced budget as a necessary precursor to the use of the unallotment authority in section 16A.152, subdivision 4, provides necessary meaning to the triggering condition of "receipts less than anticipated." The parties agree that for a current amount of receipts to be "less than anticipated," there must be some past baseline amount to which the current amount is compared. But appellants' argument that there are no temporal limitations on this requirement leaves it entirely untethered—and virtually meaningless—because the executive branch could assign any previous projection of greater revenues as the baseline. This result is contrary to the statutory presumption that "the legislature intends the entire statute to be effective and certain." Minn. Stat. § 645.17(2).

Reading the statute to require enactment of a balanced budget as a predicate to the exercise of unallotment authority provides a definite and logical reference point for measuring whether current revenues are "less than anticipated." The anticipated revenues are measured as of the date the balanced budget is enacted.
This conclusion is bolstered by consideration of the second triggering condition. The only purpose for which revenues would be logically "needed" in the context of the unallotment statute is to fully fund all appropriations. Thus, in order for "probable receipts . . . [to] be less than anticipated, and . . . the amount available for the remainder of the biennium [to] be less than needed," there must have been a point in time when anticipated revenues appeared to be adequate to fund appropriations—i.e., when a balanced budget was enacted.

The temporal limitations implicit in the common meaning of the words "less than anticipated" and "remainder of the biennium" constrain the statute‘s use to circumstances consistent with the distinct powers and roles conferred on the legislative and executive branches in the constitution. Those circumstances do not include use of unallotment authority to address a deficit known to exist but not resolved by the legislative and executive branches using their constitutionally specified powers to enact spending and revenue legislation. The unallotment statute provides the executive branch with authority to address an unanticipated deficit that arises after the legislative and executive branches have enacted a balanced budget. The statute does not shift to the executive branch a broad budget-making authority allowing the executive branch to address a deficit that remains after a legislative session because the legislative and executive branches have not resolved their differences.

Because the legislative and executive branches never enacted a balanced budget for the 2010-2011 biennium, use of the unallotment power to address the unresolved deficit exceeded the authority granted to the executive branch by the statute. We therefore affirm the district court‘s conclusion that the unallotment of the Special Diet Program funds was unlawful and void.

Affirmed.