Now what?

Legislative leaders will get their chance to weigh in on Gov. Tim Pawlenty's unallotment plan at a meeting Thursday with Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson. It is safe to say they are less than thrilled.

At the meeting, DFL leaders will be able to talk and listen, but in the end they won't have any ability to stop the governor from carrying out his plans.

"We don't have a say in what [Pawlenty is] going to choose to do here, and that's what really is very disturbing," said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud. She added: "But I think you will see a robust conversation."

What Clark and the DFL leadership want is for Pawlenty to call a special session of the Legislature to make the adjustments needed to erase the state's remaining $2.7 billion shortfall before the new budget kicks in July 1.

What they're going to get is something much less: a meeting of the Legislative Advisory Commission, a statutory committee of legislators with a strong emphasis on the "advisory" part.

After that, the only alternative left for opponents is for someone to challenge the legality of Pawlenty's exercise of his unallotment powers, a 70-year-old budgetary tool that has been used by Minnesota governors only sparingly until recently.

Two organizations with members affected by Pawlenty's unallotment plans, the League of Minnesota Cities and the Minnesota Hospital Association, said Tuesday that they're continuing to discuss the possibility of mounting a legal challenge.

Clark, who is an attorney, said she believes Pawlenty is using his unallotment powers in a way not intended by the people who drew up the statute -- or even anticipated by the Founding Fathers when they designed the system of checks and balances to limit the power of each branch of government.

It's "being used in a way to not negotiate when he should be, or to walk away when he doesn't agree," Clark said. "We don't have a form of government where a governor gets to enact laws."

Hamline University Professor David Schultz, who teaches on government ethics, said Tuesday in an opinion piece published online by MinnPost that unallotment traditionally has been used only when a shortfall emerged late in a two-year budget cycle or when the Legislature wasn't in session.

Outside of those conditions, Schultz said that unallotment may be as legally dubious as President Richard Nixon's efforts to block money appropriated by Congress in the early 1970s.

Commission to convene

Other legislators chairing committees related to areas affected by unallotment, such as higher education and health, also may participate.

Hanson will preside over the commission, as Pawlenty's representative.

Clark said DFLers would be happy to work with the governor. "But because we can do nothing besides listen to him and hear his recommendations, it would be far better if he would agree to a one-day special session and come back and deal with the actual problem," she said.