MinnPost
Does either side in the current standoff have an incentive to push to the limit the Constitutional argument for a near-total shutdown of the Minnesota government?
I really don’t know, but the tea leaves, surprisingly, point to the Gov. Mark Dayton/DFL side as the one angling for a “hard” shutdown, if there must be a shutdown.
Yesterday’s post raised the awkward constitutional question about whether the state judicial branch can authorize the executive branch to keep spending state money, in the name of keeping “core functions” going, without the legislative branch having appropriated the funds. If the answer is no, state money can’t be spent until it has been appropriated, and if Dayton and the Legislature can’t work out a budget deal before June 30, Minnesota could see a shutdown like never before.
As fascinating as the legal issue may be, there’s no use pretending it isn’t also a partisan question, at least in a case like the present where a DFL governor and a Repub-controlled Legislature have been unable to agree on how much Minnesota should spend and tax.
I find people in both parties making the strict constitutional argument. First it was Ryan Winkler of Golden Valley, a House DFLer and a lawyer, embracing the constitutional argument (quoted in yesterday’s post). Peter Wattson, Dayton’s chief counsel, has made both practical and legal arguments along the same lines in the past.
But yesterday, state Sen. Dave Thompson of Lakeville, a freshman, an attorney and a member of the Repub leadership team, also told me that “for those of us who believe the Constitution should be adhered to, I don’t see any room” for a court order for that would keep great chunks of the government running, as happened during the 2005 shutdown.
Thompson couldn’t find anything in the Constitution that would permit the courts or the governor to keep even the state corrections or law enforcement agencies running. He isn’t hoping for any such outcome, Thompson said, and he still believes a way will be found to avoid a shutdown. But “you have to stick with the Constitution when you don’t like what it says, just like you do when you like what it says.”
We may be dealing in oversimplifications here but, according to partisan stereotypes, Repubs tend to claim to be the party of strict constructionism on constitutional matters and the party that favors less government. The Dem stereotype includes the idea that constitutions must evolve to keep up with changes in society, and a stronger belief in the importance of government. Plus, state government workers -- one of the groups sure to suffer in a “hard” shutdown – are a core DFL constituency. The government workers’ union, AFSCME, was an early, key and steadfast supporter of Dayton’s candidacy. DFLers have told me that they think the Repubs are counting on AFSCME to pressure Dayton to make a deal so AFSCME members won’t have to go too long without paychecks.
Party stereotypesSo, to me, the stereotypes nominate the Repubs as the party that would insist on strict compliance with the letter of the constitutional language and the DFL as the party that would be looking for ways to keep as much of the government as possible up and running.
Nonetheless, without any on-the-record quotes to back me up here, it does seem that Dayton/DFL is angling for a “hard” shutdown and perhaps gambling that public will blame the Repubs for it, thereby increasing the pressure on Repubs to move in Dayton’s direction on the existential no-new-taxes/tax-the-rich showdown.
Dayton is the one who decided that he wouldn’t sign any of the appropriation bills until a universal budget agreement was reached. In 2005, a much larger number of appropriation bills were signed into law as the shutdown approached, which took the state functions covered by those bills out of the picture for the shutdown. (Dayton has signed one budget bill, covering agriculture.)
Thompson said that Dayton could sign just a few bills, covering the most urgent life or death state functions, like corrections and state police, and the state wouldn’t have to wonder whether the prisons will close or the highways will go unpatrolled. He said the funding gap between Dayton and the Repubs is small on those functions.
It was also Dayton who said he wouldn’t sign a “lights on” bill that some Repubs wanted to pass in the last days of the legislative session. A bill like that would clarify that the most basic state functions would continue. One scenario that’s still out there is that the Legislature could be called into a one-day special session to pass such a bill before the July 1 shutdown date, although Dayton has said nothing publicly to discourage such talk.
If Dayton is indeed prepared to hold out for an all-or-nothing budget deal, it could be because he believes (and polls tend to support the idea) that the public is on his side on the basic question of whether some new taxes should be passed to avoid too much budget cutting.
Blaming GOPBy offering to meet the Repubs halfway on the new taxes question, Dayton has also successfully positioned himself as the more flexible of the two sides, which also positions him well in the “blame game.”
If the public is likely to blame the Repubs for causing the shutdown, a purely partisan political analysis supports the idea that a “hard” shutdown will increase the pressure on them to get off the absolute no-new-taxes line and make a deal.
Sen. Thompson pointed out that it’s the governor who keeps talking about and preparing for a shutdown. Repubs don’t even like to let the word “shutdown” cross their lips, he said.
But if there is a shutdown and it last long enough for the question of how much the Minnesota government can spend without appropriations reaches the state Supreme Court, we may get an updated understanding of what the Minnesota Constitution means when it says: “No money shall be paid out of the treasury of this state except in pursuance of an appropriation by law.”
Nobody knows how this turns out. I sure don’t.
I really don’t know, but the tea leaves, surprisingly, point to the Gov. Mark Dayton/DFL side as the one angling for a “hard” shutdown, if there must be a shutdown.
Yesterday’s post raised the awkward constitutional question about whether the state judicial branch can authorize the executive branch to keep spending state money, in the name of keeping “core functions” going, without the legislative branch having appropriated the funds. If the answer is no, state money can’t be spent until it has been appropriated, and if Dayton and the Legislature can’t work out a budget deal before June 30, Minnesota could see a shutdown like never before.
As fascinating as the legal issue may be, there’s no use pretending it isn’t also a partisan question, at least in a case like the present where a DFL governor and a Repub-controlled Legislature have been unable to agree on how much Minnesota should spend and tax.
I find people in both parties making the strict constitutional argument. First it was Ryan Winkler of Golden Valley, a House DFLer and a lawyer, embracing the constitutional argument (quoted in yesterday’s post). Peter Wattson, Dayton’s chief counsel, has made both practical and legal arguments along the same lines in the past.
But yesterday, state Sen. Dave Thompson of Lakeville, a freshman, an attorney and a member of the Repub leadership team, also told me that “for those of us who believe the Constitution should be adhered to, I don’t see any room” for a court order for that would keep great chunks of the government running, as happened during the 2005 shutdown.
Thompson couldn’t find anything in the Constitution that would permit the courts or the governor to keep even the state corrections or law enforcement agencies running. He isn’t hoping for any such outcome, Thompson said, and he still believes a way will be found to avoid a shutdown. But “you have to stick with the Constitution when you don’t like what it says, just like you do when you like what it says.”
We may be dealing in oversimplifications here but, according to partisan stereotypes, Repubs tend to claim to be the party of strict constructionism on constitutional matters and the party that favors less government. The Dem stereotype includes the idea that constitutions must evolve to keep up with changes in society, and a stronger belief in the importance of government. Plus, state government workers -- one of the groups sure to suffer in a “hard” shutdown – are a core DFL constituency. The government workers’ union, AFSCME, was an early, key and steadfast supporter of Dayton’s candidacy. DFLers have told me that they think the Repubs are counting on AFSCME to pressure Dayton to make a deal so AFSCME members won’t have to go too long without paychecks.
Party stereotypesSo, to me, the stereotypes nominate the Repubs as the party that would insist on strict compliance with the letter of the constitutional language and the DFL as the party that would be looking for ways to keep as much of the government as possible up and running.
Nonetheless, without any on-the-record quotes to back me up here, it does seem that Dayton/DFL is angling for a “hard” shutdown and perhaps gambling that public will blame the Repubs for it, thereby increasing the pressure on Repubs to move in Dayton’s direction on the existential no-new-taxes/tax-the-rich showdown.
Dayton is the one who decided that he wouldn’t sign any of the appropriation bills until a universal budget agreement was reached. In 2005, a much larger number of appropriation bills were signed into law as the shutdown approached, which took the state functions covered by those bills out of the picture for the shutdown. (Dayton has signed one budget bill, covering agriculture.)
Thompson said that Dayton could sign just a few bills, covering the most urgent life or death state functions, like corrections and state police, and the state wouldn’t have to wonder whether the prisons will close or the highways will go unpatrolled. He said the funding gap between Dayton and the Repubs is small on those functions.
It was also Dayton who said he wouldn’t sign a “lights on” bill that some Repubs wanted to pass in the last days of the legislative session. A bill like that would clarify that the most basic state functions would continue. One scenario that’s still out there is that the Legislature could be called into a one-day special session to pass such a bill before the July 1 shutdown date, although Dayton has said nothing publicly to discourage such talk.
If Dayton is indeed prepared to hold out for an all-or-nothing budget deal, it could be because he believes (and polls tend to support the idea) that the public is on his side on the basic question of whether some new taxes should be passed to avoid too much budget cutting.
Blaming GOPBy offering to meet the Repubs halfway on the new taxes question, Dayton has also successfully positioned himself as the more flexible of the two sides, which also positions him well in the “blame game.”
If the public is likely to blame the Repubs for causing the shutdown, a purely partisan political analysis supports the idea that a “hard” shutdown will increase the pressure on them to get off the absolute no-new-taxes line and make a deal.
Sen. Thompson pointed out that it’s the governor who keeps talking about and preparing for a shutdown. Repubs don’t even like to let the word “shutdown” cross their lips, he said.
But if there is a shutdown and it last long enough for the question of how much the Minnesota government can spend without appropriations reaches the state Supreme Court, we may get an updated understanding of what the Minnesota Constitution means when it says: “No money shall be paid out of the treasury of this state except in pursuance of an appropriation by law.”
Nobody knows how this turns out. I sure don’t.
Posted by Eric Black
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