Veto, accompanied by strongly worded gubernatorial criticism, followed by angry legislative retorts and threats of recrimination -- Minnesotans know this mini-drama well. It has been performed with depressing frequency during 22 years of divided state government.
Gov. Mark Dayton's veto Friday of a GOP-designed tax bill featuring a state property tax freeze for businesses followed the same script, to a point. Neither side could stay entirely negative for long. About midway through their briefings with Capitol reporters, both Dayton and GOP legislative leaders found themselves talking almost constructively about crafting a new tax bill more mutually acceptable than the vetoed one.
For example, after House Speaker Kurt Zellers finished berating Dayton for disappointing the state's small business owners and disrespecting the Legislature's priorities, he invited the DFL governor to come back to the tax negotiating table. "He should talk to us about a bill he can sign," Zellers said.
Dayton did, in his veto letter and in his own briefing three hours earlier. Dayton said he favors the local economic development initiatives and some of the tax credits in the vetoed bill, and remains willing to sign tax relief measures that don't exceed $52 million in cost to the state through June 30, 2013. What he won't do, he said, is commit to measures that add to a forecasted deficit thereafter, as a permanent business property tax freeze would.
Those conditions for getting a tax bill over a gubernatorial hurdle shouldn't be insurmountable. Clever legislators can find tools to move around such obstacles, things like sunset dates and/or blink-off or, in this case, "thaw" provisions that go into effect automatically in times of deficit.
It's clear that even small compromise comes with great difficulty at the Capitol. But it's also clear that creativity and can-do spirit can overcome that difficulty -- and statehouse spirits are still positive enough to get it done.
