Senate Majority Leader David Senjem thinks things are getting too tense in Saint Paul:

“It’s time to put the spears down,” said Senjem.

Err… Senator Senjem? Aren’t you the one who started the legislative session with an unprecedented attack on the minority party? Aren’t you the one who just led your party in rejecting one of the Governor’s nominees? And that was in the first two weeks of the session.

So those actions were okay, but the Governor vetoing your effort to strip consumer protections is unacceptable? If that’s what you mean, you really should have clarified your statement: 

“It’s time [for the DFL] to put the spears down,” said Senjem.

I suspect that’s what you really meant — it’s fine for the GOP to play rough, but the DFL should absolutely not reciprocate in any way. That sounds perfectly reasonable.

The legislature has only been back in session for a week, but we already have a clear sense of new majority leader David Senjem’s leadership style: petty and vindictive. On the very first day of the session, his party voted to force the DFL to bear the consequences of the GOP leadership’s fiscal irresponsibility. To start week two, they ousted a dedicated public servant from office:

Minnesota Republicans took the rare step on Monday of voting to remove an appointee of DFL Gov. Mark Dayton.

By a 37-29 party-line vote, Republicans voted against confirming Ellen Anderson, a former longtime member of the Senate, as Dayton’s appointee to chair the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.

Trying to hide the vindictive partisan motives behind the move, GOP Senators claimed Anderson was too “extreme.” But as Patrick has already covered, if Ellen Anderson’s tenure at the PUC was “extreme,” then the entire body is extreme, since nearly every vote it has taken has been unanimous during Anderson’s tenure.

Apparently this is what we have to look forward from the GOP under Senjem — a fresh partisan outrage every single week. You’d think they’d be more interested in trying to rebuild their credibility with voters, but I guess they just don’t care about actually governing.

Under Amy Koch’s failed leadership, the Minnesota Senate acquired a significant deficit of $2.6 million that had to be addressed at the beginning of this session. So the Senate GOP immediately acted to reduce the deficit — by slashing the DFL caucus’s budget.

Republicans voted to reduce DFL staff at the Senate by more than $400,000 — meaning the DFL will have to lay off 12 to 14 people of its 43 person staff. Republicans will not reduce their staff of 73 people at all. 

This is really outrageous. The lack of accountability or even basic decency is just astounding. But I don’t know why things like this still shock me. This is the GOP’s typical method for handling budgets — first they screw it up, then they force someone else to pay. 

You can see video highlights of the committee meeting below, courtesy of The UpTake:

In 2010, David Senjem (R-Rochester) served as the Senate Minority Leader. In the euphoria of capturing the Senate for the first time in decades, though, the GOP dumped him, opting for Amy Koch’s conservative credentials over Senjem’s leadership experience. Now that the Senate GOP leadership under Amy Koch has crashed and burned, the GOP has come crawling back to Senjem.

Senjem isn’t a bad choice. He has leadership experience, and he’s comparatively moderate, although that’s not saying much. But I can’t escape the feeling that his tenure will be inconsequential and short-lived.

This legislative session is likely to be quite short. It’s a bonding year, and although I’m skeptical our so-called “surplus” will actually materialize, it’s unlikely that we’ll have to deal with a mid-biennium deficit. The Senate may also have to limit its session due to Amy Koch’s fiscal mismanagement.

That leaves relatively little for Senjem to do this session, at least by the standards of a majority leader. But what about 2013?

As I see it, there are two ways things could work out for Senjem. First, the GOP loses their tenuous grip on the Senate, and he returns to being the minority leader. Second, they retain control and once again give Senjem the boot for someone more conservative. They may have come crawling back when they were desperate, but that doesn’t mean they’ll keep him around long.

So it would appear that Senjem has signed up for a thankless task with a party that will likely not reward success. That should win him a lot of respect from party stalwarts; unfortunately for him, it probably won’t.

Former Senate Minority Leader and current Assistant Majority Leader Dave Senjem spoke honestly to the Post Bulletin yesterday about the MNGOP’s flawed approach to this legislative session. Most notably, he admitted that the MNGOP had passed a bunch of bad bills:

When it comes to who is at fault for the session ending without a budget deal, Senjem said everyone is somewhat to blame. He said he backed the Republican strategy of passing out budget bills and leaving them open in hopes of negotiating with the governor. The idea was to avoid having the bills vetoed. In retrospect, he said “maybe I was a little idealistic.”

He added, “The idea as good as it might have been just didn’t work and so then what do we do? We throw a whole bunch of frankly bad bills at him — bills we knew needed to be negotiated with the governor,” Senjem said. [Emphasis added]

Well, I’ll certainly agree with Senjem that his party passed a bunch of bad bills. In fact, their budget would have been disastrous. But if Senjem was being “idealistic” about the prospect of negotiations, it was in overestimating his own party’s willingness to deal.

The fact is, the MNGOP leadership has been completely unmovable since day 1. Their position of “we’ll compromise, but not on taxes” means “we will not compromise.” So what sort of negotiation did Senjem think was possible?

Still, I’m glad that there’s at least one person in the caucus who understands that negotiation is necessary. I wonder what the chances are that he can convince his colleagues to compromise with the Governor. I won’t be holding my breath.