Almanac: At the Capitol

In the Senate, we're running up against the policy deadline, and action on policy bills is fast and furious. Agendas are growing as authors convince committee chairs that their bills really do need a hearing.

Regardless of whether a bill is about environment, health care, transportation, or whatever, hundreds of bills have to make a stop in committees such as Judiciary or State and Local Government Operations and Oversight because some provision in their bill references rule making, data privacy issues, task forces, criminal or civil penalties, or something that is the purview of these committees. It always surprises me how many policy committees could have jurisdiction of one bill. For example, you might have a bill that starts in Commerce but requires that some data be private and that it would be a gross misdemeanor to violate the provision. So those two provisions send you off to Judiciary.

Then if the Finance department thinks a lot of people will commit these violations, the costs to the public safety and corrections departments might send you off to the Finance committee. The committee work for the Finance committee is done in the divisions, so the bill might then go to the Public Safety budget division. If the Commerce department would need to hire a couple of people to enforce the provisions of the bill, the bill might also have to go to the Economic Development budget division as well. Once the divisions are done with their work, the bill would either be rolled into an omnibus funding bill or go back to the Finance committee before going to the Senate floor for a vote.

And people wonder why we can't pass bills quickly!

Gov. Pawlenty just had a news conference and he took himself out of the running for vice president by saying:

For the 900th time, I'm not running for vice president, don't want to be vice president and am focused on being governor of the state of Minnesota. I said I will fill out my term.

Now the governor has said some of this before, but it's the first time any of us and remember him saying that he doesn't want to be vice president. He said he laughs over all the speculation about his ambitions for higher office. Now skeptics are saying that he doesn't want to be VP because McCain isn't going to be president anyway. And some of my astute colleagues pointed out that the governor didn't say that he didn't want to be president. There's lots of speculation that Pawlenty will become a viable presidential candidate in 2012 after the Republican National Convention comes to town in 2008. We'll see. Clearly we just love speculation...

There are many nervous liberals ready to cry foul over Governor Pawlenty either threatening or actually issuing vetoes this year. Let's look at the facts: DFLers often give credit to former Governor Arne Carlson as being moderate and working to move the state along smoothly. What they will NOT say is that he vetoed 179 bills or items in his 8 years in office. The lovable and venerable Al Quie vetoed 31 bills during his 4 years.

At the same time, Governor Pawlenty has so far vetoed only 16 bills after over 4 years in office. Granted, House Republicans kept many bad bills from reaching his desk in the first place. However, Democrats said little when Governor Carlson vetoed over 30 bills in my first two years in the legislature. They understood the Governor had to bring the discussion back to the middle on regulations, spending and taxes.

Governor Carlson is looked upon by many in the state with bringing sound fiscal management back to the state through the use of his veto, especially in his first term. Not one was over-ridden and I think many of our liberal friends who now laude Governor Carlson as a "doer" and as someone who worked to move the state forward vetoed the K-12 bill my first term for him to get expanded deductions and credits for parents of school kids. Governor Carlson understood the veto as a tool to bring moderation and sound management to the legislature.

Our caucus and the public at that time realized the management Governor Carlson brought to the state. In fact, if I remember correctly, when he issued vetoes, his popularity went up in the state. While legislators may get caught up in appealing to special interest groups, for pork projects and lose sight of the forest through the trees, the Governors bring management aspects and statewide perspectives to the process.

The people I talk with at my town meetings and around the state are saying "thank goodness for Governor Pawlenty" in bringing moderate balance to a left-wing legislature obsessed with taxing, spending and regulating. I think if you tracked down Arne Carlson today, he would agree that the discussion needs to be brought back to sound management, reducing long-term obligations on spending (or "tails") and a need to hold the line on taxes and job killing regulations.

Below is a chart to show that Governor Pawlenty has actually not vetoed as much as many other Governors.

Governor	Year/Session	Vetoes
Tim Pawlenty	2006	2
	2005 - Special Session	1
	2005	5
	2004	5
	2003	3
		Total Vetoes	16
Jesse Ventura	2002	9
	2001 - Special Session	6
	2001	10
	2000	11
	1999	18
		Total Vetoes	54
Arne H Carlson	1998	15
	1997	19
	1996	26
	1995	20
	1994	25
	1993 - Special Session	1
	1993	29
	1992	16
	1991	28
		Total Vetoes	179
Rudy Perpich	1990	3
	1989 - Special Session	0
	1989	4
	1988	3
	1987 - Special Session	0
	1987	1
	1986 - Special Session	0
	1986	1
	1985 - Special Session	0
	1985	1
	1984	5
	1983	2
	1978	0
	1977	0
		Total Vetoes	20
Albert H Quie	1982 - Special Session 3	0
	1982 - Special Session 2	0
	1982 - Special Session 1	0
	1982	10
	1981 - Special Session 3	1
	1981 - Special Session 2	0
	1981 - Special Session 1	0
	1981	7
	1980	8
	1979 - Special Session	0
	1979	5
		Total Vetoes	31

Gov. Pawlenty will get some ink for the first time in a long time because he's having a press conference tomorrow, at the Capitol, in his office. Now this shouldn't be news, but it is. Last week Don Davis from Forum Communications and I opined in our Almanac feature Press Pass that we didn't have the access to the governor we need and we couldn't remember the last time he had a press conference. Low and behold, the governor's communications director just called Don and told him to tell me, the governor is having a press conference to "discuss the legislative session." Yippee. We miss the guy. We'd like to know where he stands on a lot of big issues as the session heads into the homestretch. One of my colleagues just dubbed this the "Mary Lahammer memorial news conference" since I was the one complaining about the lack of news conferences. The governor has opened himself up to criticism of being more concerned with higher office by not giving the press some care and feeding. Also, if all we hear is "veto, veto, veto" he gets to sound a bit like a one-trick pony. So bring it on, we love the sport of Q & A with our state's leader.