Republican Party chair Tony Sutton had a Valentine's Day message for GOP lawmakers: Any revenue increases would violate your principles.

"Please resist any "revenue enhancement" proposals like raising taxes, raising fees, expanding gambling, expanding the sales tax, or any other such schemes that not only violate our principles, but are also bad politics and bad public policy," Sutton wrote in a Feb. 14 letter to legislators.

"The challenge will be to overcome and resist the tremendous pressure by outside special interests who will want you to compromise on the principles that got you elected in order to "find revenue" (i.e. raise taxes, raise fees, expand gambling, etc.) to "invest" in big government," he wrote. "You cannot espouse limited government on one hand, while looking to find new sources of revenue on the other."

The letter works to draw the line at not only higher statewide income taxes, which DFL Gov. Mark Dayton has proposed and Republican legislative leaders have made clear they oppose, but also the types of revenue raisers lawmakers have been less clear they oppose and some lawmakers have appeared to embrace.

(Historic note: While Republican former Gov. Tim Pawlenty prided himself on vetoing tax increases, he signed into law significant fee increases and a "health impact fee" that almost everyone at the Capitol viewed as a tax.)

Here's Sutton's letter:

lettertolegislators