2008 legislative session: All that scrapping paying off this time

Maybe polarization works.

The 2008 legislative session has been as contentious as any, with vetoes and veto threats, a high-profile veto override, the cashiering of a commissioner and plenty of name-calling.

But with a week to go, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the DFL-controlled Legislature are in position to finish on time, and with a not-too-shabby record of accomplishments that will affect Minnesotans in ways big and small.

"Assuming we can get a budget deal done, I think there will be a lot of positive things that would come of it," Pawlenty said last week.

House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, likewise said Friday: "We are way ahead of last year's mark."

Starting fast in February, DFLers rammed through a big transportation funding bill that will improve Minnesotans' roads and raise their taxes at the pump. It came over Pawlenty's veto. Later, DFLers ousted Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau from her second job as transportation commissioner.

For his part, Pawlenty has stood by his opposition to tax increases and used line-item vetoes to trim DFLers' borrowing plans.

Could much of it still fall apart? Of course. But the question just now is why such a pugnacious bunch has performed so well.

The DFL strikes back

First off, self-interest still matters. House members must face voters in November. The $6.6 billion transportation bill came with the state's first gas tax increase in 20 years. Majority DFLers would like to have property tax relief prominent in their election brochures to offset the potential fallout of the gas tax increase. This gives them an incentive to work together and to negotiate with the other side.

Chris Gilbert, a political scientist at Gustavus Adolphus College, said the Legislature is showing signs of its healthiest working relationship in the past five to six years. But he sees that as happening between legislators and not necessarily with Pawlenty.

"When he has won showdowns with the Legislature in the past, those victories have been on his terms, but that doesn't negate the fact that the governor's office projects an image of feeling entitled to get its way," Gilbert said.

This year's session, for Seifert, has been more like the second film in the series, "The Empire Strikes Back," in which DFLers overrode a veto, tossed out Molnau and passed a substantial bonding bill with what he said was little input from the governor. But he says the overall impact on real people will be slight.

"People will pay some higher taxes, and some capital projects around the state were approved. But the average butcher, baker or candlestick maker will not even notice that we were even here," he said.

Kelliher's key role

Others, including Pawlenty, have noted a more efficient, if not collegial, atmosphere. House and Senate leaders pushed a calendar that front-ended many of their goals, including a constitutional ballot question for funding the outdoors and the arts within the first days of session.

Addressing the state's projected $936 million deficit has proved elusive so far, but the amount represents a chewable 2.6 percent of a $35 billion two-year state budget, with several options available.

"She has been the bridge that keeps whatever personality conflicts there are in check," said Bob Vanasek, DFL House speaker from 1987 until 1991 and now a lobbyist.

It is also in Pawlenty's interest to have things finish on time, even if you don't buy the narrative that has him on the short list of possible running mates for GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

"Any governor likes it better when the Legislature is out of town," Vanasek said.

Vanasek and others suggest that the veto override has continued to sting Pawlenty, who has vetoed 10 bills since then. Among the casualties was every bonding-bill project located in St. Paul, including light-rail funding that Pawlenty himself included in his first bonding plan.

Seifert said Republicans urged Pawlenty to "reengage" himself with the line-item veto, rather than take down the whole bonding bill, a move that Seifert said shifted momentum in the session back to favor Pawlenty.

So now it comes down to this: images of legislative leaders going in and coming out of the governor's office at all hours, amid rumors of whether there is movement on this or that area to solve the deficit. The exotic dance has few parallels in the real world, but at stake are taxpayer dollars and programs Minnesotans depend on.

Pawlenty last week said his office has prepared for possible failure to reach a budget compromise by doing some exercises in unallotment, in which a governor unilaterally imposes budget cuts. He also said he has looked into dates for a special legislative session should that become necessary.

"It's the art of the game to a certain degree," said former Pawlenty chief of staff David Gaither. "As the time deadline gets closer, everybody wants to show there is nothing more important to them in their lives at this moment than to get this thing buttoned up.

"Working at 11 o'clock at night, it must mean we are burning the midnight oil for a reason."