editorials

Minnesota Senate rejection of a governor's appointee to head a state agency ought to be exceedingly rare, done for reasons approaching the "crimes and misdemeanors" standard for the impeachment of U.S. presidents.

The Republican Senate majority's ouster Monday of Ellen Anderson as head of the Public Utilities Commission does not meet that standard. In fact, it misses that mark so widely that it appears to have been done for political spite, or sport.

That appearance ought to have given Republican senators pause. Cognizance that a troubling precedent was being set also should have led to a different result. So should the fact that Anderson is a former senator whom colleagues know as a smart, conscientious attorney who is devoted to public service.

The fact that none of that mattered in the Senate's party-line vote on Monday reflects poorly on GOP judgment.

Unlike three other commissioners rejected by the Senate in the past 12 years, Anderson was not faulted for her performance in office. She cast 221 votes as PUC chair; only six times did she vote in the minority, and none of those cases produced controversy.

Rather, Anderson was pilloried for the positions on issues she took during 19 years in the state Senate as a leading voice for greater reliance on renewable energy and less dependence on nuclear power.

Her GOP accusers yesterday said that she "wore ideological blinders" that would bias her against traditional energy sources as a PUC commissioner and could lead to higher energy costs for Minnesotans.

That charge overlooks Anderson's record of working with Republicans, including Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who signed into law all seven of the major energy bills she sponsored during his eight years in office.

Five of those bills enjoyed broad bipartisan support. One of the others would have reduced the employee expenses for utilities that could be passed on to ratepayers -- hardly the action of someone insensitive to utility costs.

That record suggests that something more figured into Senate Republicans' thinking.

Though they deny the charge, dumping Anderson looks like payback for the DFL-controlled Legislature's rejection of two Pawlenty commissioners, Cheri Pierson Yecke at education in 2004 and Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau at transportation in 2008.

While DFLers could point to questionable performance to justify those moves, Republicans saw those rejections as politically motivated. Monday's move against Anderson illustrates how one partisan move often begets another, nastier one at the Capitol.

The move against Anderson also can be seen as part of a larger power game between the DFL governor and the GOP Legislature.

Dayton has made assertive use of executive power, ruffling legislative feathers along the way.

His call for a union election among state-subsidized child care providers was halted when GOP legislators took him to court. His move to design a state health care exchange without waiting for legislative authorization offended some Republicans.

For their part, Republicans are proposing to skirt gubernatorial vetoes by converting bills into constitutional amendments, which do not require a governor's signature to land on the ballot.

Ejecting Anderson from the PUC fits this pattern. It stretches legislative branch prerogatives past the bounds of tradition and comity in order to deny the executive branch free rein.

Anderson may remain a staffer in the executive branch, an angry Dayton announced after the Senate's vote. Nevertheless, she ranks as a casualty -- and an undeserving one -- in a larger partisan war.

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