Republicans in the legislature haven’t accomplished anything this year. They’ve done nothing to rebuild our economy, their “reform” agenda was left for dead as soon as the talking points grew stale, and they’ve even given up on putting constitutional amendments on the ballot (for which I’m very grateful).

Minnesota legislators are edging toward a historically early end to the legislative session, potentially ditching dozens of prized initiatives in their determination to head home and hit the campaign trail….

“The tulips are up, the bushes are budding and it’s time to go home,” said Senate Majority Leader Dave Senjem, R-Rochester, amid buzz that next Friday’s targeted start for spring recess could instead become a final adjournment.

Senjem has been cajoling lawmakers into adjourning by the end of the week, more than a month before the constitutionally mandated end. House Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, would prefer to go till the end of April. That would still be the earliest adjournment in 14 years.

Your do-nothing legislature at “work,” Minnesota. They campaign on the principle that government doesn’t work — then they get elected and prove it.

I suppose we should be glad they’re not doing any work, though. After all, last year they worked overtime fighting for the richest 1 percent of Minnesotans. The 99 percent are still hurting from the debt that was dumped on us in order to prevent the super-rich from paying their fair share in taxes. We really can’t afford to have them pass any more bills.

The GOP legislature has a great plan to pay down the credit-card debt it built up to protect the richest 1 percent — they’re going to do a balance transfer. That is to say, they’re going to pay back a portion of the $2.4 billion we owe our schools by depleting the state’s emergency budget reserve, which will also have to be paid back.

The GOP plan doesn’t pay down our debt. It doesn’t move us a single penny closer to financial stability. It just pushes money around, spreading our debt around and making us more vulnerable to an unexpected shortfall in the next biennium.

Republicans love to say that the government should budget like our families do. Well, we all know families who budget like the GOP — racking up credit card debt and trying to postpone the inevitable for years with intricate budgetary games and accounting gimmicks. It never works.

The fact is, those same Republicans who preach fiscal responsibility have no interest in being responsible themselves. They only have a single priority — protecting the super-rich and huge corporations. They put us over $2 billion in debt to protect the rich. Now, they want us to believe that spreading that debt around somehow makes it better.

On Wednesday, I wrote about the fiscally-irresponsible plan by Senate Republicans that would increase Minnesota’s budget deficit. It turns out that the House Republicans’ tax bill would also increase the deficit — despite trying to balance the cost of the GOP’s proposed tax cuts on the backs of renters.

Here’s more from the MN Budget Project:

The House omnibus tax bill contains a number of tax cuts. In the short term, those tax cuts are primarily paid for by deep cuts to the Renters’ Credit, a property tax refund for low- and moderate-income renters.

But in the long term, the House omnibus tax bill digs the state’s future deficit hole deeper, adding $228 million to the $1.1 billion projected revenue shortfall in FY 2014-15. And the cost of the bill grows over time, because it gradually eliminates the statewide property tax through 2025. If the statewide property tax were eliminated all at once in FY 2014-15, the cost would be $1.7 billion. The bill does not identify a replacement revenue source or the cuts in services that would be needed as a result of eliminating the statewide property tax.

I have a thought. What if we didn’t cut taxes for the rich and corporations? We’re facing a billion-dollar deficit, and we owe our schools over $2 billion. What’s more, a tax cut won’t do a single thing to create jobs — especially a tax cut for businesses that increases taxes on consumers.

The trouble is, the GOP has no interest in fiscal responsibility, and they have no interest in creating jobs. They have one priority, and one priority only — funneling as much money as possible to the super-rich.

Disgraced Republican operative Michael Brodkorb made a name for himself flinging mud. So it should come as no surprise that before he disappears from the Minnesota political scene, he’s threatening a cavalcade of filth and vitriol:

In preparation for the lawsuit, Brodkorb’s legal team is prepared to dig deep into the romantic lives of legislators and staffers.

“He intends to depose all of the female legislative staff employees who participated in intimate relationships, as well as the legislators who were party to those intimate relationships, in support of his claims of gender discrimination,” his attorney said in the document setting up Brodkorb’s reason for a possible wrongful dismissal lawsuit.

Basically, Brodkorb is threatening to blow apart his former party unless they fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money. Spectacular.

I’ll say this for the MNGOP: They sure are good at juggling. They can move money around so well that you can hardly remember where it came from in the first place. Too bad their constant shifts and accounting gimmicks only serve to hide our problems instead of actually fixing them.

Yesterday, the House GOP voted to pay back a bit of the whopping $2.4 billion we owe our schools — by shifting $430 million out of the state’s budget reserves. The GOP plan would still leave us $2.4 billion in debt, but “only” $2 billion of that would be owed to our schools.

I’ll grant that the MNGOP plan is better than nothing. It’s better for the state to owe that money to itself instead of owing our schools. But it’s not better than a truly fiscally-responsible plan that actually pays down our massive debt. The DFL proposed such a plan, but Republicans voted it down:

DFL lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to payback the entire amount owed to schools without touching the reserves. Their plan would have ended tax breaks to Minnesota companies operating in other countries. Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, urged lawmakers to put students ahead of corporations.

“We have a fundamental choice of corporate tax loopholes overseas, versus funding our kids and funding our schools,” Hornstein said. “So let’s make sure we pay back schools from Alexandria to Zumbrota rather than continue corporate loopholes from Andorra to Vanuatu.”

Instead of adopting the DFL’s fiscally-responsible solution, the MNGOP chose to side with corporations. Instead of paying down our debt, they chose to just spread it around a bit. Minnesota deserves better than this.

It’s funny: Republicans have been in control of the legislature for a year now, and we seem to be hiring a lot of layers to clean up after their messes. First, the Senate had to retain outside counsel in the wake of their firing of Michael Brodkorb. Now, the University of Minnesota is consulting a lawyer about the GOP’s hiring of Regent Steve Sviggum:

Linda Cohen, chairwoman of the University of Minnesota’s governing board, said Friday she has sought outside legal advice about Regent Steve Sviggum’s potential conflict of interest with his position in the Minnesota Senate….

She announced at Friday’s Regents meeting that attorney John Stout of Fredrikson & Byron would review the issue as an “additional step” to preserve objectivity. Stout “has advised the boards of large publicly-held corporations, educational institutions and well-recognized nonprofits” in the past, according to a memo Cohen provided to the board.

I wonder what his hourly rate is?

The GOP seems to be wasting quite a lot of taxpayer money because of their questionable ethics. I don’t know about you, but I can think of a lot of better ways to spend that money than on cleaning up after their messes. If the GOP can’t prove that they can be responsible, they shouldn’t be governing.

Earlier today, Mark Dayton vetoed a number of Republican bills that would have reduced consumer protections under the law. The GOP calls these “tort reform,” and claims they’re about reducing frivolous lawsuits. In reality, they provide new windfalls for corporations by taking away our rights to address their wrongdoings.

In one of his veto letters [PDF], Governor Dayton got to the crux of the issue:

I am deeply concerned that this legislation would make it more difficult for average citizens to defend themselves against powerful interests. The suggestion that passage of this measure will somehow create jobs in Minnesota lacks merit and substantiation. Not a single job would be created — but important protections would be greatly impaired.

In this legislative session, we’ve already seen time and time again that the GOP isn’t working to create jobs. Just like last year, all of their energy is focused on giving gifts to the already rich and powerful. I’m glad we have Governor Dayton watching our backs.

The Republican majority in the legislature, despite being a majority with the capability of passing legislation, has apparently decided not to do any legislating. Oh, there are plenty of laws they want to pass, but they’ve decided not to. Instead, they’re going to put a seemingly endless parade of constitutional amendments on the ballot this November.

We’re already going to be voting on the marriage discrimination amendment, and at least three other amendments have a lot of momentum right now: amendments to suppress voting, bust unions, and bankrupt our government. And it could get even worse. There are a whopping 33 constitutional amendments currently proposed in the House. Here’s a list:

This isn’t how our system of government is supposed to work. We have a representative system of government. We elect our representatives, and they pass the laws. This legislation by constitutional amendment is a disgrace.

We can’t stop the Republicans from making a mockery of our system, but we can reject their effort to rewrite our constitution. This November, vote NO on the entire Republican Overreach Agenda.

Wow:

The Republican Party of Minnesota announced today that Florida Congressman Allen West will headline the party’s annual Lincoln Reagan dinner in March.

If the name Allen West sounds familiar to you, here are a few places you may have heard of him:

• West painted [Congressman Keith] Ellison as someone who “really does represent the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established” [ThinkProgress]
• Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) is backing away from comments he made over the weekend telling Democratic leaders to “get the hell out of the United States of America.” [Huffington Post]
• Rep. Allen West (R-FL) fomented a racial controversy with comments describing African-American voters’ tendency to support the Democratic Party as a “21st-Century plantation.” [ThinkProgress]
• Florida GOP Congressman Allen West this afternoon dispatched a scathing personal email to Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, calling her “vile, unprofessional ,and despicable,” “a coward,” “characterless,” and “not a Lady,” and demanding that she “shut the heck up.” [Politico]

I could go on, but I think you get the point. This seems like a pretty good insight into the state of mind of the MNGOP these days.

To say Mark Dayton is angry at the partisan attack on one of his appointees would be putting it mildly. Dayton is clearly furious — as he has every right to be. Senate Republicans are clearly bent on spending the legislative session doing nothing but attacking the DFL.

In response to the vote against Ellen Anderson, Dayton released a long statement slamming the Republicans as “unfit to lead:”

You would think after their leadership scandals, which caused them to replace all of their leaders last month, they would behave themselves for at least a little while.  However, they seem incapable of doing so.  After it was disclosed that they had ignored a $2.6 million reduction in their own operating budget during the past six months, the Republican Caucus hired a new Communications Director at a salary $10,000 above his predecessor.  And they picked someone, a decent man, who now has a very serious conflict of interest as a University of Minnesota Regent, which he won’t acknowledge and they won’t deal with – thus sullying the good reputation of our great university.

Last week, their very first week back in session, the Senate Republican leaders addressed their deficit by cutting DFL Senators’ share of the budget almost half-a-million dollars, while cutting theirs…zero.  Zero.  They did it after their new Leader said the Senate was “like family.”  Some family. 

Now, to begin their second week, they have smeared and rejected an outstanding public official.  They claim PUC Chair Anderson is “too extreme.”  Her record proves them wrong.  Since she joined the PUC, there have been 221 votes among the five commissioners, the other four of whom were all appointed by Governor Pawlenty.  Three of them are Republicans….

I’ll tell you what is extreme.  As Chair of the Senate Tax Committee, Senator Julianne Ortman, who leveled the charge of being “too extreme” against Ellen, is the one person most to blame for eliminating the Homestead Market Value Credit last year.  She put the credit’s elimination in the first tax bill, which I vetoed.  During the final negotiations in both June and July, she, more than anyone, insisted on eliminating it.

Clearly, Dayton is hurt by the GOP’s partisan attacks. And can you blame him? In one short week, the GOP has completely blown up any chance of a productive working environment in the Senate. One can’t help but wonder why they decided to create such a poisonous atmosphere.