[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Tom Olmscheid[/image_credit][image_caption]Gov. Tim Walz, with agreement on budget targets in hand, leading Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka and House Speaker Melissa Hortman to Monday's news conference.[/image_caption]
I first wrote this blog on May 21, 2011 – exactly 10 years ago. Nothing has changed in a decade.
What has emerged is the new normal for Minnesota politics. The new normal is that the completion of the budget does not occur by the constitutionally mandated deadline in May but instead by July 1 – the commencement of the new budget year. That seems to be the new deadline. But even then, that date, like Oct. 1 for the federal government, appears more suggestive than drop-dead. A threatened partial shutdown in 2003 and then a real one in 2007 and 2011 also eased the stigma of missing July 1.
Why the new normal?
The question becomes why? Why has the new normal emerged? One answer is divided government, yet even back to the days when Rudy Perpich was governor and the DFL controlled the Legislature there were special sessions to address the budget. Under Arne Carlson and then Ventura they became more frequent, and then under Pawlenty and Mark Dayton they emerged as the new normal. With Tim Walz, the same pattern. No, divided government is only a partial answer.
There are two causes explaining the rise of the new normal. The first is a growing ideological divide over the nature of government. The second is structural, questioning the efficacy of the current budget process.
The governor and the split Legislature are as far apart today as they were in January regarding all the essentials over the budget. It is about dollars and taxes, yes, but it is also about other fundamental divides in America, of which Minnesota is a perfect microcosm as the only legislature in the nation where one party holds control of one chamber, another party control of the other.
Rival views of government vs. the market
At the heart of the dispute is a basic difference in their rival views of the government versus the market. The GOP generally seems to see government and taxes as bad, an intrusion upon the wisdom and functioning of markets. Let markets act and they will generate jobs prosperity and solve the basic problems of society. For Walz and the DFL, while market solutions and the private sector are the preferred places to produce jobs and make decisions, they recognize markets fail. Markets fail to address needs of equity. They produce inequities in wealth and income distribution, they fail to address core problems of education funding and disparities, and they fail to address problems in infrastructure investment.
No, it does not look like the GOP wants no government. Many still find it necessary to hire police and enforce basic laws, and apparently to enact laws to prevent same-sex couples from marrying and women from terminating pregnancies or to give tax breaks to the wealthy. The real difference between the GOP and Walz and the DFL is over how much government and what government should do in our society. It is a debate between rivaling views — government versus the market, the individual versus society.
We live in a society now where everything is a partisan divide — yes or no, with no in between. Police reform, face masks, vaccines, marijuana — you name it, there is a divide and no incentive to compromise. With barely 10% of the State House and Senate seats truly swing seats, most are in firm partisan control of one party and there is no incentive to compromise. Conversely, compromise means facing a primary opponent from the left or right. One cannot give in — it is a sign of weakness.
The debate over “why government” is ideological. Arising simultaneously are two other phenomena aggravating the debate over why government – the triumph of ideology over pragmatism and party polarization.
Thus, part of the new normal is that no negotiations can take place in public. Dating back at least to Dayton, all compromise is behind closed doors, often out of session, involving the governor and chamber leaders. New normal means less transparency and open government.
Combine politically polarized parties with a take-no-prisoners ideological divide over the role of government and what do you get?
A flawed budget process
But the polarization is only one problem. The second is the flawed budget process in Minnesota. I have been arguing this point for nearly 20 years.
It is a budget process built for the horse and buggy days trying to operate in the 21st century. Government is so much more complex, the budget numbers so much larger, the functions more diverse, that it is perhaps impossible to reach consensus and make decisions between the beginning of January and the first Monday following the third Saturday in May in any year. There simply may not be enough time to do the budget by law.
But think also how flawed the current budget process is right now. The old governor makes the initial budget. The new governor is elected and needs to update it to reflect his or her priorities and the fiscal forecast in November. The Legislature comes to work in early January and then it waits until late January or so for the governor to release the budget. Then they all wait until late February for the updated fiscal forecast.
[image_caption]David Schultz[/image_caption]
Sound confusing? It is. It is also inefficient. At least two months are wasted at the beginning of every budget cycle waiting for the governor’s budget, the fiscal forecast, and then agreement on budget targets. Now add more wrinkle: Budgets are created right after state elections when often many new legislators or constitutional officers are elected. They are green, often learning on the job while creating a new budget. In a distant past when life and budgets were less complicated (and smaller), perhaps it was possible to do all this with a part-time citizen Legislature. But those days have passed. A new budget process is needed, with new timelines and ways to move the work along.
A decade or more ago I proposed solutions to the process. Change the timing of events. Move the budget to the second year of the session to allow new legislators to learn their jobs. Adopt, as they have in Wisconsin, an automatic continuing resolution to extend the current budget into the next fiscal year to prevent shutdowns. There are other reform ideas too, but no will to change.
Someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Politically this is what we’ve been doing in Minnesota for more than 20 years. If this is not politically insane or crazy, I do not know what is.
David Schultz is a Hamline University professor of political science. He writes the blog Schultz’s Take, where this commentary first appeared. Schultz’s latest book is “Presidential Swing States: Why Only Ten Matter.”
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Well-said, professor. There aren’t many things about government that I’d want Minnesota to copy from Wisconsin, but automatic continuing resolutions are among those few. My distaste for part-time legislative sessions began with my arrival in Minnesota a dozen years ago, and it continues unabated. The fact that many in the legislature find themselves in committee hearings and other meetings “out of session” seems like confirmation to me that the 19th-century, “Well, Martha, I have to go to St. Paul to run the government for a few months” mentality that still dominates the thinking of too many politicians in the state is hopelessly out-of-date. We ought to have full-time legislators, and legislative sessions that run from an agreed-upon date (after budget forecasts have been made public) until that date the next year, something that would make continuing resolutions unnecessary to keep the state government functioning. Because of those archaic time restrictions, the slightest obstruction by a half-dozen House or Senate members of either party can bring the entire process of government to a halt. I can’t believe that dysfunctional government is what the writers of Minnesota’s Constitution had in mind when they put the document together in the first place.
As Professor Schultz alludes to and Ray confirms, a part-time legislature these days borders on Neanderthal (my label). Cut the numbers in half and meet full time, what they are doing now is crazy.
Schultz neglects to mention that one party, the GOP, has more to gain by jambing a stick in the spokes. They campaign on the idea that “government doesn’t work”. Once elected, they become the party of “no”. The corporate media, more interested in stories about puppies than doing some spadework to tell the public what’s really going on, simplistically give us the “these kids just can’t play nice in the sandbox” type of both sidesism they love. The resulting cynicism plays into the next GOP campaign of “government doesn’t work.”
When you elect the government doesn’t work crowd, what do you expect? Efficiency? Remember their response to Katrina?
I agree with many of your proposals to help solve this problem. However….
“No, it does not look like the GOP wants no government. Many still find it necessary to hire police and enforce basic laws…”
“…it does not look like” “Many” Come on, Man! I hope this is sarcasm….
Of course we have “unliteral Tim” hovering over all these proceeding being supported by the “defenders of democracy.” Yes – cheap shot but not sarcasm…. His unilateral power should have been mentioned in the article because it is a “huge” issue and part of the negotiations.
It does look like liberals like the idea unilateral power. Many are not believers in democracy and prefer to bend the knee before the all -wise governor. I could not help myself.
And if it was 1942 and “unilateral FDR” said gas rationing and many key domestic commodities must be directed to the war effort, you, no doubt would be outraged and organize gas burning caravans to make your point.
Oh! You will say. How can you compare the 2?
Easy:
US WW2 Deaths: 416,800
US COVID 19 Deaths: 588,000
Thank you Gov. Walz for making the difficult decisions to the best of your ability. The easy way was to emulate IA, SD and NE Govs and just stick your head in the sand until someone says it is safe to come out.
There’s a difference between his executive orders and the legislative process. And I’m not so certain you understand the difference. And his executive orders are prescribed in the constitution, which he followed completely.
What the GOP is complaining about is that they could not impose a no mask mandate on the rest of the state, Not because it’s based on science or logic, rather that it is based on ideology and winning the next election. The GOP also would happily restrict voting rights, eliminate any gun regulation, outlaw gay people and eliminate abortion, even though all these policies are supported by vast majorities of voters. All to keep their precious little wedge issues that they can use to divide rather than bring together.
And when it comes to the pandemic, all the squawking from your party has to do with the attempt to make the public forget that most of this mess was due to the GOP and that idiot Trump.
Modest fact check:
(1) “Not since 1999 – the first year of Jesse Ventura’s term as governor – has a budget session of the Minnesota Legislature ended on time without a special session, partial governmental shutdown, or a controversial ending such as in 2009, when Gov. Tim Pawlenty used his unallotment power (subsequently declared illegal by the Minnesota Supreme Court) to balance the budget.” The 2013 budget session, when both houses of the legislature were DFL and Mark Dayton was governor, ended by the constitutionally required adjournment. See the Legislative Reference Library’s list of special sessions (https://www.lrl.mn.gov/history/spsess) – the 2013 special session occurred in September to address a natural disaster, not the failure to enact a budget on time.
(2) “One answer is divided government, yet even back to the days when Rudy Perpich was governor and the DFL controlled the Legislature there were special sessions to address the budget, such as in 1985.” In the 1985 legislative session, the Republicans controlled the House; government was divided. See the Legislative Reference Library’s chart (https://www.lrl.mn.gov/history/caucus?body=h) of which caucus controlled the House.
The inability to finish a budget during the regular budget session is heavily driven by divided government because of the two parties’ differing views of budget priorities. Fixing that will require some genetic modification of their respective partisan DNAs, while all recent mutations seem to be pushing them away from one another. Yes, the process could be improved to make it more rational, but the chasm that divides the parties’ respective priorities and philosophies will remain stubbornly difficult to bridge.
Continuing resolutions (allowing some version of a status quo budget to continue without legislative action) have complex effects on legislative bargaining and the effects vary when revenues keep pace with or exceed spending and when they don’t (i.e., there’s a deficit) – depending upon the details of the rules. The practice will reduce the potential for “shutdowns” – interruptions of government service – but is unlikely to help legislators resolve their differing budget priorities in any systematic way.
Process measures rarely solve substance issues. Republicans believe government shouldn’t work. That means that when they are in a position to do it, they will prevent government from working. The logic is inexorable.
–Hiram
Liberals want to keep on funding government programs that do not work and are failing miserably. Reform is not in their vocabulary. Keep on funding is what they do.
Process is under attack everywhere. Norms have proven remarkably susceptible to shattering and lions are laying down with lambs everywhere. This is the new politics, and there doesn’t seem much chance of going back, so the important questeion as it always is going forward. I, for one, have never thought pushing unread legislation through in the middle of the night resulted in any unmixed sort of a blessing. I am aware of no provision in the Minnesota Statutes that tells you at what time of the day or night it was enacted.
There’s a very quick and easy way to fix the problem. Fine the governor and every legislature for every day there is a special session. Make the fines big enough to hurt. How about $10,000 for the 1st day of the session with $5,000 for each additional day. If that doesn’t work, increase the amounts. Problem solved!
Why fine the Governor? It is the Legislature’s job to pass a budget.
Terrible solution. Wealthy legislators could impose their will on everyone else by sandbagging everything until the end of session.
MN’s system of government is a clown show. Without a working citizen referendum system and an idiotic rural area over-represented bicameral legislature, Minnesota is heading for trailing-edge government, economy, education, and infrastructure without a clue as to what that destination will be like.
I agree with all suggesting we adopt the WI approach of a continuing resolution.
Our governmental system is under stress. I have a sense that after 240 years or so, it is an advanced state of just being worn out. Thirty years ago, a senate controlled by one party during the administration of another party was not only capable of giving presidential nominees to the Supreme Court, it even approved them. That is no longer possible. In 2001, after the World Trade Center was attacked, Congress and the administration were able to set up a commission to study the matter. This year, after an attack on the US Capitol, it is impossible to create such a commission, indeed the incident itself is in the advanced stages of being forgotten.
Those who argue that our presidential elections have become a clown show are not wrong. Twice during this century, candidates who lost the popular vote have won the presidency, in each case, with disastrous consequences. Instead of recognizing a fundamental flaw in the always unsatisfactory way we choose our presidents, we have increasingly strange rationales for how the founders believed that states that were a hundred year of coming into existence at the time the constitution was enacted should have a disproportionately large role in how we choose our presidents.
To quote one of our greatest writers, “Go figure.”
I served in the Legislature in 2007-2008. I think it would help immensely to eliminate the May adjournment deadline for the Legislature in our State Constitution. It is very difficult to understand the budget process and spending details in just a couple months for new lawmakers.
I also think we should make the Legislature full time, starting in January and ending in December every year with occassional breaks. Most of us don’t go to a part time doctor, or a part time auto mechanic or a part time restaurant. The Legislature does the most important work that is done in this State. Why do people still think it should be part time and done by citizen-legislators?
“Why do people still think it should be part time and done by citizen-legislators?”
Well…
Given the performance of our full time legislators at the federal level, not much encouragement can be found.
How about full time Unicameral?
Or, in a total mind altering move, copy our neighbors to the North in Ontario and adapt a Premier/Parliamentary system where a ruling majority must be assembled to select the Premier?
Now that would get a lot of attention!
One modest proposals I have is to ban amendments to bills, let’s say five days before adjournment. That would move up a lot of last minute considerations, but then it would give the public and legislature to actually consider what they are doing when they vote on bills. Bills could not be enacted in the middle of the night with no one knowing what’s in them.
I also believe the constitution should be amended such that each house should be required to give up or down votes on the floor to bills enacted by the other house.
Joel Michael makes two excellent factual corrections to my commentary (and I thank him for the fact check), neither of which though take away from my basic argument.
One, he is correct that there was divided government in 1985 and the special session that year was needed to address budget issues. I have not dismissed divided government and partisanship as issues driving the need for special sessions to get the budget done. It plus the broken budget process are both critical to my argument.
Two, he is correct that in 2013 the budget was completed on time when the government was not divided by party. However, since 1998 that makes for only one session out of approximately twenty where the budget was done on time and it required a perfect storm of unified government and clear party discipline to get to that point. A one out of 20 or five percent success track record does not sound good. By comparison the current Twins baseball record looks great by comparison!
His one great idea was deciding not to run for a second term.
I’m also not convinced that a unicameral legislature is a good idea. It’s certainly efficient, but passing new laws speedily is not necessarily a good thing (remember that Nebraska is also – at least officially – nonpartisan, as Minnesota was until the 70s).
Divided government: Personally I don’t think the majority of folks even understand the goal of governemnt! I’ve asked folks to explain how their views fit into the goal the founders wrote out for us, most don’t know what it is where to find it, or how their ideals and principles align to support it.
I do not know the exact number of years but for a very long time (10 years at least) the state Senate and House refused to increase their pay. No one wanted to be pereived as being eager to be paid more. Instead, legislators scammed the per diem allowances to increase their pay. Them someone got the brilliant idea to have an independent body decide pay increase, avoiding the necessity to vote an increase.
Similarly, today’s legislators do not want to be perceived as professional politicians by being full-time legislators. Of course, running for and winning the same office election year after election year after election year puts the lie to that charade. But then, appearances are everything when it comes to politics. Fake it ’till you make it.
The problem with senates is that they have too much authority. We should follow the British model with the House of Lords. Senators should be given lifetime authority but with legislative authority. That would free the senates up to be a forum of ideas, where the great issues of the day could be discussed without fear of political consequences. I think, in the long run, that would mean the senates would have more influence of events than less.
Ah-hah, like a supreme court? Let me drink some, perhaps a lot of good high ABV craft beers on that one!
Under the parliamentary system, the roles of the upper house and the supreme court are combined. As a matter of general federal government reform, that might be something we should look into.
“Under the parliamentary system, the roles of the upper house and the supreme court are combined.”
Not correct. There is nothing inherent in a parliamentary system that calls for the judiciary to be part of parliament. Canada and Australia have Supreme Courts separate from Parliament, and the House of Lords in Great Britain lost its judicial authority in 2009 (appeals to the House of Lords were heard only by Law Lords, and Law Lords rarely took part in any other business of the House of Lords).
A parliamentary system combines the executive and the legislative branches. Back in the 80s, there was a columnist for The New Republic who regularly sang the praises of parliamentary democracy. He said he became a convert after seeing the League of Nations treaty rejected by the US Senate.