Yesterday evening, Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch (R-Buffalo) announced that she would not be running for reelection in 2012, and that she would be resigning as Majoriy Leader immediately. In a letter to colleagues, she wrote “we cannot afford a lame duck leader in negotiations next session, which is why I am resigning from my position of Majority Leader.”

The highlights of Koch’s one-year tenure as Majority Leader were a government shutdown and a plan to “balance” the budget that relied on $1.4 billion in borrowing instead of asking millionaires to pay their fair share in taxes. Polls have shown that Minnesotans overwhelmingly blame the Republicans for this year’s shutdown, and they oppose the Republicans on taxes and spending. Koch’s legacy will thus likely be a DFL-controlled Senate in 2013.

Will Koch’s departure change anything within the Senate Republicans? Ordinarily, I would say it’s unlikely. If Deputy Majority Leader Geoff Michel (R-Edina) takes over, I believe the transition will be quite smooth.

However, if I ever believed Koch’s departure could signal some sort of change, right now is the time. The MNGOP is undergoing a massive wave of change, having lost both the state party Chair and Deputy Chair, and now their leader in the Senate. The party is ripe for change. Of course, it’s still too early to know whether there actually will be any changes, and if there are, whether they will be for the better or the worse.

It’s no secret that Michel Bachmann’s campaign for president has been flagging. She’s been dropping like a stone in all the polls, and in the GOP’s field of “flavors of the month,” she’s two flavors ago. But what nobody could have expected was that she had two major endorsements that she waited until now to spring on us:

Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch.

Perfect timing! We all thought Bachmann was beaten. But announcing the endorsements of two state legislators, in a state that probably won’t even factor into the nomination, on a Friday afternoon months into the campaign, puts Bachmann right back in this thing.

Stay tuned for the upcoming Bachmentum.

Our elected leaders reached an agreement on a budget deal on Thursday, when Mark Dayton chose to accept the Republicans’ proposed budget to end the shutdown. But today, Monday, there’s still no special session to re-open state government. What’s taking so long?

The Cucking Stool reports that the GOP may not have the votes to pass its own budget, despite Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch’s insistence that it will pass. Her case isn’t helped by Senator Mike Parry’s temper tantrums, which Koch seems unwilling or unable to control.

For Senator Koch’s own sake, I hope she gets control over her caucus, finds the votes she needs, and does it fast. The people of Minnesota want this shutdown to end, and we want it to end now. After she stood in front of the media with the Governor and announced that a compromise had been reached, there will be hell to pay if her caucus cannot or will not end the shutdown.

This is priceless. One can only hope all of this teacher’s students don’t perform so poorly.

Sen Koch Oped Red Pen 071311

TO: Rep. Kurt Zellers and Sen. Amy Koch, GOP leaders
FROM: Jeff Rosenberg, concerned citizen
RE: Budget solution

Dear Rep. Zellers and Sen. Koch:

You will be happy to know that I have a solution to the state budget crisis. I know that as a private citizen, I have no official position in the negotiations, but I am supremely confident that my proposal will meet with your approval, since it is largely based on your own proposals.

There is still a $1.6 billion gap in our budget. To eliminate that gap, I propose that the Governor agree to $100 million in cuts to Health and Human Services, and in exchange, you agree to $1.5 billion in increased taxes on the rich.

Given your recently-expressed proposal that one side in the negotiations give up nearly 16 times as much as the other, I presume you will find this arrangement acceptable. It differs from your proposal only in that it asks you to make the larger concession instead of the Governor. This seems only fair, since it was you who proposed such as arrangement in the first place.

I thank you for laying the groundwork for this compromise, and I look forward to the speedy resolution of our budget crisis.

Yours Truly,
Jeff Rosenberg

Has anyone seen Republican leaders Amy Koch and Kurt Zellers? Where are they, and why won’t they do their jobs?

Koch and Zellers have been silent on the misbehavior of Tom Hackbarth and Gretchen Hoffman. Zellers once claimed “we are reforming government, starting with ourselves.” Fast-forward seven months, and he is unwilling to even discipline a member of his caucus.

Even worse is that they appear to be absent from budget negotiations. With only two weeks left, they haven’t even made an offer yet.

We need the MNGOP’s leaders to show some leadership. And we need them to do it now.

Yesterday, the story broke that Tom Hackbarth had called a constituent a communist and a Nazi in an incredibly inappropriate email. Hackbarth has still not apologized. Instead, he appears to have gone into hiding, save for an interview with right-wing radio station KLTK in which he claimed the email was “taken out of context.” It’s unclear in what “context” it’s okay to call your constituents Nazis.

There’s only one question left in this saga, I fear: How long until the legislative assistant gets blamed?

In the meantime, the Senate Ethics Committee said Sen. Gretchen Hoffman, R-Vargas, must apologize for blatantly lying about Sen. Barb Goodwin, DFL-Columbia Heights. Hoffman took a statement by Goodwin wildly out of context on Twitter, portraying her as saying the exact opposite of what she had actually said:

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Republican leaders Kurt Zellers and Amy Koch remain blissfully unaware of how negotiations work. After the governor offered to cut his proposed taxes on the richest Minnesotans in half, he called on the Republicans to meet him halfway.

The MNGOP finally made their offer yesterday, offering to increase their budget targets by a miniscule $110 million, then suggested they would require reductions elsewhere in the budget to offset that increase. In other words, they offered nothing.

To make the non-offer even more thoroughly ridiculous, Zellers then proclaimed that it was a “significant sacrifice” for his caucus. It made me wonder how Zellers would handle a negotiation for something more mundane, like purchasing a car.

Salesman: Well, Kurt, what do you think about the car?

Zellers: I like it, but let’s talk price.

Salesman: Good news on that front. The retail price is $39,000, but I can let you have it for 37.

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