Galen Robinson, litigation director of Mid-Minnesota Legal Assistance and one of the attorneys who filed the suit, said Minnesota law allows governors to take unilateral action, known as unallotment, but only when the state has unanticipated budget shortfalls.
Pawlenty knew there would be a shortfall when he vetoed the tax-raising measure and signed budget bills into law, the suit says. He then let the session end and didn’t call legislators back to fix the problem.
Pawlenty’s decision to unilaterally redo Minnesota’s budget without the legislature was fraught with legal problems. Chief among them, as the article says, is that the budget didn’t need to be balanced — Pawlenty was given a balanced budget that included both spending cuts and tax increases, but he chose to create a major deficit by signing only the spending bills into law. Another problem is that some of Pawlenty’s changes go far beyond his authority to co-opt legislative powers.
I don’t know how the lawsuit will turn out. But Pawlenty’s move was always on shaky legal ground, so whatever the final ruling, I think it’s extremely important that the courts are involved. This lawsuit will do a service to Minnesotans by helping to clarify the laws on unallotment.
I totally agree- I think it's been a failure of our system of checks and balances that there has not yet been a serious judicial review of the governor's actions regarding unallotment. I'm happy to abide by the results of this case, even if they decide that Pawlenty acted within the law. I was not however happy for him to not only to act unilaterally but to unilaterally decide that he had the legal standing to do so. This judicial review is nothing less than the restoration of law and order.
We need politicians who will have the courage to raise taxes. No more DINOS. Raise taxes or we will throw you out. No cuts to anything.
Budget bills, like any other, are only passed when approved by both the legislative and executive. That both the house and senate passed a bill is not any different than if it had passed through the Joint House/Senate Subcommittee on Claims. Marketing wise, sure, legally, not so much.
The courts can't force the executive to sign a bill any more than they could have forced the legislative branch to write the bill so that it is acceptable to the executive. The courts simply can in no way assign blame for a budget that is not balanced. Therefore the only option available under current law is unallotment by the governor.
These laws were in place during last session and should have been understood by anybody involved in either the house or the senate. The obviously were by somebody in the governor's office. If the legislature had wanted to, knowing none of their tax increases were going to be signed, they could have made the decisions on what spending they wanted to cut and sent only that amount of spending to be signed. They provided the governor with everything he needed to do what he did.
The one area the current round of unallotment seems open to challenge is the degree to which the the govorner can do more than simply cut. I believe he has been shifting money around as well which to me seems to be beyond his authority.
The courts CAN, however, find unallotment to be unconstitutional, if the legislative branch did indeed submit a ballanced budget.
But the budget was balanced. Sure, it may have been rushed at the last minute, but a balanced budget was given to Pawlenty and he vetoed it. Unallotment was not the only option under the current law.
The budget was not balanced. A bill that leaves the legislature is not a law until signed. For laws to come into existence they need approval of both branches. Anything short of that constitutes nothing of legal importance. Therefore the budget was not balanced, MAK and Pogemiller gave Pawlenty the opportunity to sign the spending before they sent him the tax increases. They didn't have to do it that way but when they did they gave Pawlenty all the power. If they had worked on the tax increases first they could have kept the power to write the spending bills to fit the revenue amount . No matter how much the revenue might have been. Instead they played chicken and lost, legally giving all the power to Pawlenty.
A bill for a balanced budget was passed. Bills are passed by the Legislature, and are presented to the Governor for approval. See Article IV Section 23 of the Minnesota Constitution.
The "opportunity to sign the spending" sounds like the Governor was entrapped and tricked into signing. On the contrary, he free to veto the spending bill that was presented to him first.
Do you know who should have filed this lawsuit? Attorney General Lori Swanson. Why didn't she? Because she spent all of her political capital busting the union in her office. Pawlenty warned her that he would destroy her if she sued, and so she didn't. Why did we bother putting a democrat into the AG office if she won't do anything to make the governor follow the constitution? It's a disgrace that legal aid had to step in to do what the attorney general should have.
Just to clarify: the Attorney General's role is to defend in court actions of the state government. She does nto have the authority to sue the Governor over a power-grab; indeed, she is obligated to defend it.
People must sign in as “guest” purposely in order to peddle ignorant twaddle.
I'm not going to disagree that we have a structural problem that needs to be fixed. The idea of balancing a budget through unallotment sits with me about as well as passing healthcare reform via reconciliation. It may be a usable loophole, but Thomas Jefferson would be rolling in his grave if he realized that is how we governed.
However, last time I checked, we passed budget bills by the Legislative and Executive branches agreeing on a bill, or in some cases by the Legislature overriding a veto. To say that we had a balanced budget means that the Governor needs to rubber stamp spending bills.
If, in four years, MAK is governor and she receives a spending bill with a decidedly GOP flavor to it, would we expect her to rubber stamp it? No. The Executive branch holds as much power as the Legislative branch.
Don't get me wrong — unallotment didn't sit well with me, but as a casual observer it appears to have been legal.
Ummm, Thomas Jefferson would have been rolling in his grave if he knew Democrats want to pass something with a simple majority? Jefferson would have objected to majority rule democracy?
— -reconciliation: Needs to pass both houses of congress by a majority vote and signed by executive branch.
— -unallotment: bypasses all branches except executive. allows one branch power to change laws already on the books.
Which one of these would make TJ roll over in his grave again?
Cloture is an extra-constitutional loophole. Reconciliation can be used to bypass this bit of parliamentary procedure and restore the democratic process to majority rule. Please cite a need for a super majority in the constitution for regular legislation.
Thomas Jefferson believed in setting up due process and then following it. He believed that sign-off from multiple branches of government was a good thing. He didnt' consider something passed by one branch to be a "law already on the books" as you say.
"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." - TJ
And when you say unallotment "bypasses all branches except executive", you obviously have an issue with the fact that two branches didn't come to agreement on a budget. The same would have been true if the budget passed by MAK's legislature would have been set law, right? I think we're arguing the same thing. It takes two branches to tango in a good setup. Unallotment wasn't right. Neither is expecting the governor to rubber stamp MAK's budget.
Let us not forget, MAK sent Tpaw a budget that she knew he would veto. Shared fault. A collective failure.
Trent Lott, once argued for the unconstitutionality of the filibuster.
"In short, some suggest, ordinary majority rule is the Constitution's baseline, and the Constitution is careful and explicit in detailing the situations in which supermajorities are required. Thus, the Constitution's drafters plainly knew how to impose a supermajority rule when they wanted to. They didn't, however, impose the supermajority requirement for ending debate in the Senate."
In other words, the constitution explicitly states when a super majority is required, and since cloture isn't one of them, it is not constitutional.
Cloture is probbly legal because congress can make their own procedural rules, but cloture is not in any way democratic in nature.
Passage through the legislature is meaningless if vetoed becasue it does not become law. The legislative branch then has the opportunity to override. They didn't even give themselves the time to try that route in this case.
It is really the term "passed" that seems to be given weight that it does not deserve. Passage alone carries no weight of law greater than the opinion of any individual legislator, unless you pass with 2/3rds. As such it is not likely something that can even be even considered by the courts.
If DFL leadership had acknowledged that they didn't have the votes to increase taxes they could have taken it upon themselves to determine where cuts happened and send spending bills that needed no revenue increases to reach a balanced budget. Instead they decided to whistle past the graveyard and give Pawlenty the legal authority to do what he did. They choose to ignore the fact that they could have picked where the cuts happened in favor of using the governor as the scapegoat and allowing him to make the decisions to what spending got cut. Because the couldn't increase the size of the pot they choose to have no part in how what was in the existing pot would be divided.
You seem to have missed this.
"See Article IV Section 23 of the Minnesota Constitution"
No. The fault is entirely Pawlenty's. He would have vetoed ANY budget the house sent him. It is an idealogical failure. A Republican failure.
untrue, he insisted on a budget that didn't increase taxes, Big MAK and the rest of the legislature couldn't get it done so he unalloted.
Yes, both sides failed miserably. I tend to be biased and think the Governor was an immature baby who wouldn't compromise from an ideological viewpoint he needed to take to run for the presidency. But I agree, both sides failed in a big, big way.
And yet, he is now raising taxes vis a vis the wisconsin deal. His plan was obviously to fuck up any budget bill sent to him. This was a ploy to boost his run for president. Gladly, he still ranks at the very bottom of the pack. Good riddance to him.
Unalloted improperly, you mean. Unallotment is for unanticipated shortfalls, but the shortfalls here were known.
His proper course of action was to call the Legislature back into special session, but that would have shot his national persona as a Democrat-destroyer out the window. What does the Constitution matter when you're playing to the base?
Article IV Section 23 of the Minnesota Constitution explains what is needed for a bill to become law. The last minute bill submitted to the governor by the legislative branch which would have balanced the budget did not meet those requirements becasue it was not signed. Therefore it carries no weight. Zero, nothin', zilch. No more legal authority or standing than a press release (which is all that last bill was meant to be anyway). There are no provisions in Article IV Section 23, or anywhere else in the Minnesota Constitution that provides any standing to bills that "almost" becomes law.
You might want to try reading, and understanding, the items cited before making claims.
I have done both. Tell me what claims I made. Furthermore, you are incorrect as to your interpretation of IV/23.
This guy explains it in small words. Have a read.
http://www.minnpost.com/community_voices/2009/06/...
His proper course of action was to call the Legislature back into special session
I'm with you on that.
From the article.
"Second, the unallotment proposed here violates Minnesota Constitution Article IV, Section 23. This section outlines when a governor can veto a bill presented to him. Here one could argue that the creation of the budget is a series of bills that the governor has three days to veto. Once he chose not to veto the bills they became law. Now his decision to use unallotment amounts to a second veto. He cannot do this. No new bills are being presented to him, his three days have expired, and he does not have a second chance to veto."
Notice that the argument being made here has nothing to do with the one you and many others claim is valid. That the bill passed at the last minute by the legislature and then vetoed by the governor means that a balanced budget was passed. Nor is it that the use of unallotment is on its own unconstitutional. The argument made in the article is that unallotment is unconstitutional becasue it acts as a veto. The problem with that claim is that if true unallotment would not be constitutional in any case. The argument that the unprecedented degree to which unallotment was used in this case makes in unconstitutional is very weak. Especially given the lack of any available alternative.
This leaves the argument hanging by one final thread. That the governor should have called a special session to address the budget issue. The problem with that argument is that only the governor has the authority to call a special session and there is no way under current law the court could force him to do so.
So what remedy could possible be suggested by the courts that are not blatantly unconstitutional or illegal themselves? The courts can't force a special session, they can't force the governor to pass tax increases or undo the passage of the spending bills. Since by law the budget must be balanced unallotment is the only remaining legal alternative. An alternative only made possible becasue of the fact the legislature passed and the governor signed into law more spending than could be paid for with existing revenue. Something they did not have to do.