Gov. Tim Walz said he didn’t see it coming.
Like nearly everyone involved in the third special session of the Minnesota Legislature — other than the 35 members of the Senate GOP caucus — Walz learned that Nancy Leppink would be removed as commissioner of the Department of Labor and Industry by text message just minutes before it happened Wednesday.
The sender was Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka. The time was 3:29 p.m. And the recipients of the message were Walz and Senate DFL leadership. Gazelka told the group he had the votes to oust Leppink.
House GOP Leader Kurt Daudt put it more bluntly: “Looks like the Senate is executing a prisoner today,” he tweeted during the debate on Leppink.
There was little the DFLers could do, but they were still angry that they hadn’t been given more notice. “We did not have any indication that this would happen,” Walz said Wednesday evening after the party-line vote. “I’m concerned that in the middle of a pandemic when we need stability … that we’ve been undermined in that.”
He said he would find a new appointee to carry out the same policies as Leppink.
[image_caption]Commissioner Nancy Leppink[/image_caption]
Yet no one was alleging that Gazelka and the Senate majority didn’t have the ability to do what they did. Under the section of the Minnesota Constitution on the governor’s powers and duties, it says: “…with the advice and consent of the senate he may appoint notaries public and other officers provided by law.”
And though it’s happened before, it is unusual. According to the Legislative Reference Library, Leppink is just the seventh to be removed since 2000. The most recent removed commissioners were Education Commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke in 2004 and Transportation Commissioner Carol Molnau in 2008, both appointed by GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty and both not confirmed by DFL Senate majorities. (Molnau was also lieutenant governor and retained that elected position.)
Yet Leppink’s removal exposed an unusual feature of Minnesota government: Because appointees are allowed to serve pending confirmation — and because there is no deadline for action — many gubernatorial appointees are never confirmed, a situation that gives the state Senate an ever-present threat: If an appointee crosses the Senate majority, or if a governor angers them, they can strike.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan[/image_credit][image_caption]Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka[/image_caption]
But GOP senators also had a string of grievances about Leppink, from how she implemented a wage-theft law to her role in negotiating a deal to ease workers compensation eligibility for medical providers and first responders who get COVID-19; from how she enforced a requirement that wedding barns have fire sprinklers to rules on youth employment as applied to Paul Bunyan Land in Brainerd.
“We need a DLI commissioner whose priority is being responsive, supportive, and open to helping business, and not one who is interested in regulating, harassing, or closing businesses — especially as we plan safe reopenings during COVID,” Gazelka, of East Gull Lake, said.
Yet senatorial advice and consent is usually meant to come shortly after an appointment to assure someone is qualified, not as a way to sanction an appointee who, in the case of Leppink, has been on the job for 19 months.
At the Capitol, though, actual confirmation votes of appointees have become the exception, not the rule. Only three of Walz’s appointees have been confirmed by the Senate: Agriculture Commissioner Thomas Petersen; Office of Higher Education Commissioner Dennis Olson; and Public Utility Commissioner Valerie Means.
Just three others have even been formally considered by Senate committees: Iron Range Resource and Rehabilitation Commissioner Mark Phillips; Bureau of Mediation Services Commissioner Janet Johnson; and Department of Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Steve Grove. All of their appointments were sent to the Senate floor with recommendations that they be confirmed.
The rest sit and wait.
After Wednesday, it’s a wait that could be uncomfortable for some, since it appears that Gazelka is prepared to do it again. “There are a few commissioners that we want to have some informational hearings,” he said before adjourning the Senate Wednesday. “We think it’s prudent to take a look at some of the things that have been going on.”
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Greta Kaul[/image_credit][image_caption]Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm[/image_caption]
Senate Minority Leader Susan Kent, D-Woodbury, complained that the vote was a surprise to her caucus and to Walz, saying it went against normal protocols and courtesies of the Senate. She said Gazleka even told her nothing controversial would come up in the single-day session other than the debate on emergency powers.
All the while, the DFL has been asking when the confirmation votes would be held for appointees who had been in place for 19 months. “These have been held back as some sort of political weapon,” Kent said. “We have to look at this process that they can use in a pure partisan way. Is this extortion — that unless the governor does some things they will threaten to take out another important leader?”
How will Walz respond?
Each time the governor has extended the emergency declaration, he has also signed a proclamation convening the House and Senate. But each time he has also said the law is vague — and that monthly special sessions might not be legally required.
Wednesday, before he knew the Senate would use the latest pandemic-related special session to dump Leppink, he said: “When this started there was no precedent and it’s very much a gray area on the use of Chapter 12, emergency powers,” he said. “No one actually anticipated them going beyond 30 days. We could probably have made the argument that (the Legislature didn’t) need to come back and revote on (emergency powers). We didn’t take that position. We said the Legislature needs to come back, they need to make the case, and if they’re able in the House and Senate to say, ‘No, we’re past this and we want to reassume these authorities,’ they would do so.”
But Walz said that knowing he has had the DFL-controlled House as a firewall — that any vote to rescind his emergency powers in the Senate would be voted down by the House. Bringing lawmakers back was not going to change his authority.
Might he think differently after Wednesday?
“We’re fighting a pandemic and the Senate is playing ‘Battleship’ with our commissioners,” is how one administration official phrased it.
That same source said Thursday that while the law says a session must be convened if an emergency is extended beyond 30 days, it doesn’t say a new session must correspond with every extension. In other words, the intent of the law might have been met with the first special session convened in mid-June.
That may or may not be a winning argument, but it may also not matter. Hamline University political science Professor David Schultz said it wouldn’t have to succeed in court as long as any litigation extended beyond election day.
Even though he questions whether the DFL will win control of the Senate this election, it might. And Walz could maintain the state of emergency without giving the GOP Senate additional opportunities to dismantle his administration commissioner by commissioner.
“I could see him doing that,” Schultz said.
The cost would be to lose any chance to pass a bonding bill or other relatively minor spending and tax bills. But those are increasingly unlikely to pass this year anyway.
Schultz said he thinks the legal reasoning behind any claim that Walz can keep lawmakers out of session while maintaining emergency authority is faulty. “Emergency statute and powers are exceptions to normal legislation and procedures,” he said. “This reverses that and says the Legislature has given the governor any power he wants. This ought to violate separation of powers clause as well as delegation and legislative powers on how a bill becomes a law.”
But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t prevail in the current court.
A more blunt move could be for Walz to let his emergency declaration expire and then impose a new declaration a minute later, along with the 70-plus executive orders he has signed since mid-March. That would reset the five-day clock on a required approval by the state Executive Council, which is made up of the five statewide elected officers, all of whom are DFLers, and the 30-day clock on when a session would be needed. And he could potentially do it multiple times.
Schultz said that unlike the U.S. Constitution, which tends to limit governmental power, the Minnesota Constitution enables government authority. With a part-time Legislature, it made sense to let appointees serve until the lawmakers returned to St. Paul for their relatively brief sessions. But it does challenge the concept of separation of powers if part of the legislative branch can maintain a threat over the executive branch throughout a governor’s term, simply by not confirming appointees.
“It does strike me as an excessive amount of leverage,” he said.
Republicans, the party of chaos and death. No wonder they are so loved.
Not mentioned is the removal of Ellen Anderson as PUC chair by the Senate Republicans in 2012. I did not consider her a great chair, but the Repubs made no secret of their desire to obstruct improvement in energy policies.
Gazelka, by any reasonable measure, is a public nuisance.
Gazelka and Daudt must have gone to school in Wisconsin – they’re going down the same rabbit hole. Why aren’t they howling about Trump’s Executive Orders? They only howl when a Democratic, democratically-elected governor tries to keep the state healthy. It’s a mystery…
A crass, cheap stunt by Daudt, Gazelka et al, which shows how cruel and underhanded they are. People are dying unnecessarily daily and the “party of Life” ignores this and continues with power games. In the face of a mismanaged pandemic by their party. They play small ball revenge games. Never mind people are dying, we need to get the other side.
This is revenge for Water Gremlin, as they are protecting a business that poisoned workers, their families and the neighbors. The GOP and business have one and only one agenda, reduce any barriers to conducting business with no constraints and fobbing the costs off onto the public once the costs come due. This is pure economic nihilism, privatize the profits and socialize the costs. They do it again and again- Water Gremlin, Northern Metals. Twin Metals, all BWCA mining projects. This is the true meaning of their reduce job killing regulations, but they’re really trying to say is increase people killing industries and duck all consequences. And the funny thing is, their supporters are usually the victims. Darwinian I guess.
Covid is no longer an emergency that meets the intent of the emergency powers statute. It is a serious ongoing public health problem that is going to be with us for many more months or even years. Government by fiat needs to end. It’s time for the legislature to be involved in determining how we are going to deal with this.
Surely the Republican-controlled Senate has had ample opportunity to show that it’s capable of a constructive, effective response to the pandemic. Since it hasn’t, and will not, Walz has to do what he can by Executive Order.
Based on the legislatures proven track record of being able to quickly and decisively manage critical issues?
They would schedule a vote on mask wearing sometime in 2022.
As you said:
“It is a serious ongoing public health problem that is going to be with us for many more months or even years”
Only because of the failure of leadership to do something. Look at New Zealand to see how decisive action solves the problem.
Actually, if everyone had Covid seriously, we’d be closer to back to normal already. But Gazelka and Republicans hate jobs. They hate businesses. They want to keep us in recession for years to come. Republicans are the party of economic failure.
This is one of the most insightful statements ever posted on MinnPost. We need more statements like this that show the best of MN intellectual analysis and exhibit public education at its best.
“It’s time for the legislature to be involved in determining how we are going to deal with this.”
It’s time for the Republicans in the legislature to grow up and actually try to govern. Of course, that would mean they had a belief in gorvernment, democracy, common good, etc. Their actions are simply taking Newt Gingrich’s theories and putting them into practice during a pandemic. A sorry bunch that refuses to wear masks during a legislative session despite the advice of virtually every expert is going to work with Walz? Give me a break.
Gazelka and his surly junior high bully, Kurt Daudt, have no intention “to be involved.” The pious one, Gazelka threatens to keep acting like some two bit racketeer and unabashed jackass, Daubt, chortles with glee.
Minnesota’s republicans line up perfectly with trump’s methods of destruction of our country and state. Instead of doing nothing, they are destroying. They are abandoning the jobs they were elected to do and that is to serve the citizens of our state over politics. We are in an unprecedented crisis and they are making it worse. Walz should not have tried to appease them. I just hope our voters are paying attention and vote the worst of the lot out in November. We could have a bonding bill passed with their cooperation and hundreds or a few thousands of good paying jobs would be created. Our infrastructure would improve, not kicked down a road full of crack & potholes.
If Republicans spent as much time trying to build things as they do tearing them down we’d all be better off.
I don’t think they would have the first idea of how to do that. They are the party of opposition, so when they are faced with an opportunity/need to lead, they are completely befuddled.
Daudt and Gazelka should jump into one of Daudt’s classic cars (not the one purchased through the hand gun waving negotiation) and head South. There will soon be prime Gubernatorial material available in Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Georgia. Failed Governors on their way out of office because of total COVID failure. They could recruit one of these guys to come up here and do for MN what they have done for their states. Daudt and Gazelka’s inability to acknowledge that these are tough times and we need to rally behind a governor who has produced above average results instead of trying to stick it to him politically at every opportunity.
A short time ago, Wisconsin was running 7-8,000 fewer cases than MN. After WI opened up…which MN repubs are trying to do here…they started to gain on us. Today WI has more cases than does MN.
Thank You Gov Walz for trying to protect us. I wish that was a repub concern.
More cases, more cases! Who cares? How about deaths? Yes, more and more people will contract COVID 19 and more and more of then won’t know it or won’t have any symptoms. So? Unless the hospitals can’t handle the cases what is the real problem? Flatten the curve! It is beyond flat. Now it’s number of cases. Does anyone care how many cases of the flu or measles there are? How about strokes or cancer which kill more Minnesotans every day? Let’s have a weekly total published of causes of death just for reference. Note that NO newspaper or this website does this. Why?
You want to hear about pandemic-caused deaths, Tom? The NYT recently reported that (according to CDC data) excess deaths in the US from March 15 are now above 200,000. So the next excess death milestone in the Trump Pandemic will be 400,000. By December 31st? Probably.
And deaths are also not the only metric of damage, as Covid seems to cause lasting(?) disabilities in a significant number patients as well, unlike the flu. You can go on minimizing Covid-19 all you want; like global warming, it doesn’t care what you think, nor do the statistics…
My apologies for the off-topic comment.
While I’m not sure what “excess deaths” are, I hope that deaths associated with people losing their jobs and all hope are included since shutdowns increase those numbers. The numbers of people killed while “protesting” should also be included.
I also don’t minimize the death total form COVID 19, but I see a very big difference between death numbers and case numbers. If two thirds of our whole population testes positive for COVID 19 but have no symptoms, is that really a problem?
People are focused on death from COVID (and rightly so) but seem to be minimizing the impact on people who survive. The average hospital bill for a COVID hospitalization is $73,000. (https://www.fairhealth.org/article/costs-for-a-hospital-stay-for-covid-19). With 5800 hospitalizations (and climbing) in Minnesota that’s an additional $425M in hospital bills for Minnesotans, with a possible $1B cost before we get a vaccine.
Tom,
MinnPost covers your concern in a separate daily report on Cases and deaths. If you would like to know how to gain access to these publications, please click this link and enter your email address:
https://www.minnpost.com/daily-coronavirus-update/
I didn’t see any information about strokes, traffic fatalities, cancer, or any of the other causes of death that I mentioned. Thanks for the link.
You are no doubt unaware that COVID can produce lingering health effects. Researcheres have foud that it can cause neurological, cardiovascular, renal, and pulmonary damage.
It’s not like a hangover. You don’t just feel like crap for a while and then walk away.
So it looks like Walz has a variety of legal games he can play to counter the bad faith game initiated by Repub Gazelka. I encourage him meet Repub game-playing with game-playing of his own. I’d name Gazelka’s dog as the new Labor Commissioner, and place Leppink as the new Commissioner’s acting chief deputy. This would be suitably absurdist and Kafkaesque. After Gazelka’s majority votes down his dog as Commissioner, name Daudt’s dog. And does anyone else raise an eyebrow at Repub Daudt’s “executing a prisoner” rhetoric? It’s always violent imagery for these male “conservatives”, isn’t it?
The bigger problem, of course, is that the MN Constitution appears to allow this sort of irresponsible nonsense, and thus it has to be amended to require that the senate vote on the Governor elect’s cabinet within 60 days of nomination or they are deemed approved. It’s surprising that such an absurd anti-good government loop-hole could have been allowed to persist by both parties for decade after decade, but it’s just another example of the failed constitution(s) Americans live under.
Well, it appears that in this instance the Republicans are sabotaging the public welfare legally. That part is refreshing.
These political shenanigans are so tiresome and petty. So… could Governor Walz simply hire back Commissioner Leppink as a consultant, not actual department head? Isn’t that what Trump has sometimes done, especially with his rapid staff turnovers?
The GOP is gone and the Trump Party is in its place. It’s the party of stupid – science denial, authoritarianism, willful ignorance, religious dogmatism, racism – you name it. This is a perfect example.
Now seems like a therme of our State’s IR leaders – make every bad situation worse.
Obviously the commenters are Democrats who support Walz. I am truly an Independent. On that note, I believe the Governor needs to allow the Republicans a seat at the table. He has effectively shut them out. He has given them no choice except to do what they are doing. What ever happened to politicians sitting down and working out a deal? Both sides have to give a little? Those days are gone. So since he refuses to let them have any input, I don’t blame them for picking off his commissioners one by one. It’s all they have left.
When the pandemic is in the rear view mirror, I hope these emergency powers are taken away. Trump is doing the same thing on the national level with executive orders. This is not how the founding forefathers intended the country to run.
Why should Republicans have a seat at the table? They lost the election, and Walz is the Governor.
As Republicans are fond of saying when they win elections, “elections have consequences.” It’s too bad that you’re nopt gettiong your way on things, but thawt’s how representative democracy works. Cope.
Because we have 3 co equal branches of govt and the citizens of MN elected Representatives and Senators to represent them and pass laws. They didn’t elect a dictator. Walz needs to work with both houses of the Legislature. Since he refuses, then the GOP needs to clip his wings however they can. He’s not a dictator despite what he thinks.
The citizens of Minnesota elected Governor Walz. They did not elect a junta.
Please tell me where, in the Minnesota Constitution, it says that the Governor “must” work with the Legislature to exercise his authorized powers.
Only the Legislature can make laws. Yet Walz is making them left and right by EO. Tell me, would you be so accepting of the situation if Johnson had won and ignored Hortmann and the Dems for going on 6 months? I doubt it.
The people elected a Governor to carry out the laws the Legislature passes not to continue using emergency powers long after the emergency ended. Every single decision he’s made since the first 2 weeks could have (and should have) been decided among him and both houses in plenty of time to enact them. There was no longer an emergency once the 2 weeks were up and hospitals had gotten prepared (for something that never came anyway).
Who says the emergency has ended? Some guys on YouTube don’t count.
You’re basically just saying what you think, without backing it up with anything other than overheated rhetoric. As a frequent commenter on this site noted recently, “Anyone can post an opinion. That doesn’t make the opinion right.”
Bob, the problem is not with Walz. It is with Gazelka and the Repubs will not compromise on the very important issues we are facing. The repubs have no interest in dealing with police reform, race relations or science. If they put half an effort in, Walz would meet them. They are the roadblock party. They are not being helpful.
You don’t think Gazelka actually cashes his paychecks, do you? It’s not like he does anything.
Republicans apparently want to make it easier for business to get away with wage theft and not provide adequate coronavirus protection to employees. I guess whatever business wants it gets and workers be damned.
What can be done about it is to win control of the legislature.
Republican legislators want a role in executive decision making regarding the virus. I guess we are supposed to keep a straight face when they do this, not be condescending or whatever, but these folks are climate change denialists. They don’t believe in science. They think problems magically go away as a matter of policy. The notion that they should have a role in the life and death decisions surrounding the virus is beyond absurd. They can’t even agree on something as easy as a bonding bill for gosh sakes.
They run the Senate, which is part of or democratic system. So just because you disagree with their views they should be ignored? How would you feel if the roles were reversed and Gazelka was Governor and the Democrats ran the Senate?
Do you think a Republican governor would give a rat’s hindquarters about letting Democrats participate in the decision making? Do you think Republicans would not make the welkin ring with cries of how “unfair” it is, and how Democrats are just playing politics with the system?
I am not in favor of ignorning anyone. But I don’t think being a member of the legislative branch gives you a role in executive decision making. That’s a violation of separation of powers and in this particular case, just a really bad idea. If a legislator wants a job in the executive branch, he or she should send them a resume or run for governor.
This is one more example of why Minnesota needs to join the 16 states that have an actual representative government that is forced to behave with a direct imitative system that allows voters to reform the government without the interference of lobbyists, Russians, and special interests. Our hyper-cowardly/conservative constitution doesn’t even allow voters any voice unless we get “permission” from the crooks in the state congress.
Two things occur to me, in no particular order:
1) What’s the procedure to fill a vacant position normally, if it occurs when not in session? Just appoint and then wait for confirmation? If so, then go ahead and re-appoint her as soon as the session convenes.
2) ““We need a DLI commissioner whose priority is being responsive, supportive, and open to helping business, and not one who is interested in regulating, harassing, or closing businesses — especially as we plan safe reopenings during COVID,” Gazelka, of East Gull Lake, said.” See–this is the (OK, one of the) fundamental problems that I have with the Republican party: They believe that the purpose of government is to help businesses and incidentally help and protect the people. They seem to think government exists to enrich businesses. I have to believe that alone should disqualify them from sitting with the grownups.
Coming late to this particular party, and admitting that I could be (very) naive about this sort of thing, I can’t help wondering why – if they’re interested in governing, and not simply obstructing or exercising power – the Republicans in the legislature would be interested in dismantling the duly-elected government put in place by Minnesota citizens in the last election. Mr. Gazelka comes across as a more-obviously-bald, slightly less bombastic Minnesota version of Trump, or someone high up in the Trump administration. Show me the place in either the U.S. or the Minnesota Constitution that says “The purpose of government is to help business prosper.”
A healthy economy is certainly important – some would say crucial – to a functioning society, but I’m not aware of any constitutional mandate(s) to aid business ownership at the expense of workers, or ordinary citizens who are neither workers nor owners.
I hate to psychologize politics. I think it’s a tactic used to avoid substantive discussions. In saying what I am about to say, I am violating a pretty basic rule for myself, but I guess I am going to break it anyway.
I think what we are seeing here is a combination of guilt and denial. Republicans know that in putting Donald Trump forward as their nominee for the presidency of the United States, they committed a deeply irresponsible act. They put forward a man they knew was morally unfit for the office, a man who was at least a borderline criminal, and who was fundamentally incompetent. The result was the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans for which Republicans are indirectly and even directly responsible. This is a pretty big burden to bear, and naturally they are developing strategies to bear it. In this case denial. They are simply pretending now that they didn’t do what they did. They are pretending that they are an ordinary politcal party entitled to their accustomed role in our politics. Despite their responsibility for death and the economic collapse of America, they pretend there is nothing to see here, that a party whose psychosis got us in this mess has a role to play in getting us out. And they utterly fail to realize how absurd this is.
I am open to anything from anyone. If someone has a good idea, let’s hear it, and if those ideas come from Republicans that is great. But as a party, Republicans have failed us and they have failed America. And that is something which will they will have to do, before they resume their role in our moral and political life, the role we in our two party system, need them to fulfill.
Left unsaid here after many comments, is what the hell is the Gazelka/Daudt/Repub plan? What do they want to do to combat the Covid pandemic? All they focus on is terminating Walz’s emergency powers, which are granted by statute. If they think he has exceeded them, they can file a lawsuit and seek to have the MN Supreme Court rule against the Governor. They haven’t done that, nor have they passed a bill laying out the Repub plan to contain the virus in MN. Just like the Repubs in DC have no plan whatever to reform health insurance after they repeal Obamacare.
The reality is they have no plan other than business-as-usual and celebrating the American Right to be Typhoid Mary, as we saw in Sturgis, SD. The Sturgis Rally is the Repub plan. In other words, let the virus take its course, and damn the consequences.
So this is just more of the usual “conservative” whining, game-playing and obstruction. They are a party of grievance, not governance. And, in every instance, to stand with them makes a person part of the problem, not the solution.
Perhaps it’s payback for the disdain Dayton had for the GOP. I don’t think Walz deserves it but just a thought.
That’s a heck of a way to govern. Acting like a bunch of irascible children who are bent on taking revenge for some perceived slight that happened years ago doesn’t inspire much confidence in the Republican Party.
What choice does Walz have here? This talk of dictator is nonsense. Just ask yourself, what is the Republican plan to move our state forward on ANY of the more burning issues of the day: police reform, race relations, COVID-19, the environment, schools, etc.? Gazelka et al see no need for police reform, race relations are either just fine or an urban problem, the environment is to be depleted, not nurtured for future generations, and the whole COVID/schools issue is to just ignore it.
Why would Walz, who feels an obligation to protect the state and citizens he was hired to serve, give any more power to such a cowardly lot as the Republicans? Walz is the only one keeping us in the game.
Part of what Republicans do is threaten that if you don’t put them in office, they will wreck the country. Essentially, that what President Trump is doing when he says the stock market will collapse if you don’t reelect him. The stock market has been strong because Republicans along with Democrats have done things to support it. If the Democrats win, that Republican support will be withdrawn, and the consequences could be pretty dire. During the Obama years, Republicans actively supported measures which would have hurt the economy such as raising interest rates in the middle of a recession.
What Republicans aren’t quite saying now with respect to the state legislature, is that if they retain control of the senate, and even worse, gain control of the house is that will obstruct Tim Walz from governing effectively during the last two years of his term.