In an act of  pure political showmanship, legislative Republicans today forced a vote on Gov. Mark Dayton’s tax proposal as a way to balance the state budget deficit.

But Dayton knocked the drama out of the move before it began to unfold.

The governor wrote Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk and House Minority Leader Paul Thissen to tell DFLers to join with Republicans in voting against the action, which was presented as an amendment.

'Political games'
“I understand that the legislative majority may try to play political games today by forcing a vote on what they claim is my tax proposal, rather than get to work on their own budget,’’ Dayton wrote Bakk. “I urge you and all other legislators to vote against this amendment as a way to reject this charade.’’

In the end, all but one DFLer (David J. Tomassoni of Chisholm) in the Senate did join with Republicans in opposing the meaningless amendment. That means an amendment, written by a Republican but purporting to represent Dayton’s budget, was defeated 63 to 1.  

In the House, the vote against the amendment was  131-0.

Why did the Republicans bother with this little act?

Presumably, they’d wanted to show that not even all DFLers would support Dayton’s initial budget plan.

But in fact, the governor’s budget has not yet been presented to the Legislature in its final form.

Dayton, like governors before him, was required by law to present a budget plan BEFORE the budget forecast. That means his first plan — which called for a fourth tax tier for the wealthiest Minnesotans and, initially, a surcharge on the very wealthiest — was more of an outline than a document for the Legislature to act on.

In the wake of the budget forecast, released earlier this week, Dayton is preparing a final, detailed budget. He already has said he will drop the surcharge, given the rosier budget forecast that dropped the projected deficit from $6.2 to $5 billion.

Republicans have already said any Dayton proposal with a tax increase is “dead on arrival.’’

House joins Senate in vote today
Late last week, even House majority leaders had seemed perplexed as to why Senate Republicans were in such a rush to stage this vote on an amendment that had no standing.

But this afternoon they joined the Senate in the action.

And House DFLers joined their Senate brethren in refusing to play the Republican game.

The rush to hold the vote seemed to undercut the Republicans effort to show the public that they were going to do business differently from legislatures in the past. They were going to be transparent, diligent, business-like.

Today’s action didn’t seem like any of those things, though some Republican Senators tried, with a straight face, to say that the effort was being made to move the budget process along.

Geoff Michel of Edina, a leading Senate voice, brought up the amendment on the floor, attaching it to an education-related bill that included tax deductions. He insisted the amendment was being put forward to speed up the budget debate.

Only the most partisan of people saw any meaning in the action.

Republian Party Chairman Tony Sutton and his deputy, Michael Brodkorb, tried to turn the 63-1 vote into some sort of meaningful mandate.

“We want to congratulate and thank the Minnesota Senate for voting against Mark Dayton’s budget proposal today,’’ that duo said in a statement. “Dayton’s plan would have driven businesses and jobs out of the state, further devastating the economy. The simple fact that opposition to this bill comes from both Democrat and Republicans should send a clear message to Dayton that high taxes and increased spending is not what the voters want.’’

The party sent out an equally effusive message about the House action.

Of course, because of Dayton’s letter, the vote did nothing of the sort.

DFLers blast back
Instead, the vote gave DFLers an chance to lambaste Republicans with “game-playing,’’ a task they took to with gusto.

“Today’s vote was just cheap political theater,’’ said Bakk. “To date, Republicans have offered no answers, no solutions and no ideas for tackling the state’s historic budget deficit. Instead, they’ve just given us political games and ‘gotcha’ votes. ... At the end of the day, we are where we started. The party holding the gavels opposes the governor’s plan, but has yet to put their own plan on the table.’’

Republican leaders have said they are moving diligently to get budget targets to their committees and will have a full budget proposal by March 25. They rightfully have been able to claim that they are moving faster to coming up with a budget proposal than their predecessors.

But today’s vote showed that the Republicans aren’t spending all of their time figuring out how to develop an all-cuts approach to resolving the budget deficit.

What it did was allow the governor to take a dig at business-friendly Republicans.

Instead of “juvenile political theater,’’ Dayton said that Republicans should quickly pass legislation that would pay back delayed income tax refunds to businesses.

Businesses are owed about $150 million, because of a delayed payment plan set up in last year’s effort to balance the budget.

Dayton has been pushing the Legislature to get the money back into the hands of businesses.

“Doing so would incentivize these investments in Minnesota and provide expanding businesses with additional cash to create jobs for our citizens,’’ he wrote in his letter to Bakk.