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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Broken process

Legislators rightfully upset over this session’s special interest orgy

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“The worst I’ve ever seen.”

That was Rep. Tom Anzelc’s assessment of the lack of transparency in the final days of this year’s legislative session, and it has many legislators, including Anzelc, talking reform.

Since the close of this year’s legislative session, which remains incomplete pending a special session, the outcry from legislators over the abuse of the process has been almost unprecedented. Legislators are rightly frustrated that after months of hard work in committee, so much of their work was scuttled by a last minute orgy of special interest legislation agreed to behind the scenes by House and Senate leadership, with no input from the vast majority of legislators.

It has some legislators, including Anzelc, talking of term limits as a means of heading off the consolidation of legislative power in the hands of too few individuals. We’ve long had reservations about term limits, but the abuses of the process demonstrated by legislative leaders this year certainly argues for some manner of reform.

Unfortunately, new rules for the Legislature aren’t necessarily the answer. The Legislature already has rules and timelines that are supposed to guarantee that the work of lawmakers takes place in the open. The problem, as noted by many frustrated legislators, was that legislative leaders ignored the rules, and abused their power to craft secret deals, or to exact payback against perceived enemies. It might qualify as politics-as-usual in a place like New Jersey or Chicago, but it was a performance that shocked many Minnesotans, who are used to better government than what they witnessed this year.

Gov. Dayton rightly vetoed some of the worst of the excesses, but it may still take court action to undo the underhanded assault on the auditor’s office. We’ve certainly had our issues with the current auditor, but it was shocking to see DFL leaders conspiring against one of their own. In either case, it’s a poor (and possibly unconstitutional) way to deal with a political disagreement with another elected official. Will the Legislature defund the governor’s office next if they can’t reach a budget deal?

If legislators want to restore an orderly process, they need to elect leaders who will respect the process, and respect members of their own caucus. Emails recently obtained by the Star Tribune showed the palpable anger expressed by some DFL senators who felt their agenda had been thwarted by all the last minute intrigue.

There was no reason for such a disappointing session this year. With a billion dollar surplus, there should have been little problem reaching an overall budget agreement. It turned out it was mostly policy provisions, many of which were crafted in secret by top legislative leaders, which prompted Dayton to pick up his veto pen.

While some have suggested that Gov. Dayton was too aloof from the process, it’s hard to see how greater involvement from the governor would have helped. In the end it was the process itself that was short-circuited by top legislative leaders, primarily Republican House Speaker Kurt Daudt and DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, who maneuvered in secret (excluding the governor and other legislators) to advance many of the offending provisions. They knew such special interest measures would be opposed by the governor, and even most DFLers, hence the secret deal-making, revealed only in the final hours of the session.

It was an embarrassment, and Minnesotans are rightfully angry over it. Legislators should take all appropriate steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.