Dean Johnson

Senate Smoke Signals

Mary Lahammer — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:54:53 -0500

Senate Tax Chair Tom Bakk came down to the Capitol Press Corps to respond to Gov. Pawlenty's remarks earlier in the day. Bakk sounded a very interesting and conciliatory note. He said in negotiations "nobody gets everything they want, but governors are very powerful." Of course Bakk wants to be governor too. Bakk also gave a surprising signal saying "we don't have to have a tax bill this year." Some in the press thought that had the echo of several years ago when then Majority Leader Dean Johnson admitted "we don't need anything."

Meanwhile, Pawlenty had a new approach to talking with reporters. He held a casual press conference sitting down with reporters at a big table in his reception room. Pawlenty took on the tax chair saying "Sen. Bakk's bill increases property taxes more than mine" and added that the notion local governments have "no option but to raise taxes is bunk." Bakk said he'd rather not have property tax increases approved either. It seems maybe Bakk could get along better with Pawlenty than Senator Pogemiller who admits his relationship with the governor isn't great.

And Pawlenty is going new media, not just a new website, but he's now on Twitter (with staff help tweeting). This is not a note you get every day:

Hi, Mary Lahammer (mlahammer).

Tim (pawlenty) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Tim's profile here:
http://twitter.com/pawlenty

Capitol Update - February 19, 2007

tptadmin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:26:17 -0600

A Contrarian View of the Legislative Session

Joe Bodell — Wed, 23 May 2007 09:24:10 -0500

I'm a Democrat. This means that I should be incensed right now at the results of the recently-concluded legislative session, right?

Not so much.

Don't get me wrong, I think the DFL caucuses got thrashed in the public relations war. While DFL leaders were and remain on the right and just and upstanding side of the issues, they crafted no coherent narrative of why their stands are the right way forward for Minnesota. There are issues at the leadership and communications levels that will need to be addressed if the DFL hopes for more success in 2008, both at the Capitol and at the ballot box.

But let's pull back and put this session in perspective. Raise your hand if you've ever heard the saying "representative democracy is a bad form of government — it's just better than anything else out there..." or something like it. It holds true at times like these. Governmental deadlock is annoying, for sure, and has short-term detrimental effects. But in the longer run, that deadlock and the checks-and-balances system that causes it are gifts to us from the Founding Fathers. Co-equal branches of government, especially those controlled by opposing parties, mean consensus must be reached for anything to get done. Deadlock, committee process, parliamentary procedure, and even arcane traditions like the U.S. Senate's filibuster mean that no one group can shove an agenda into law through sheer force of will and arm-twisting. And those factors leave us where we are today, with a state government that hasn't done much to help where they might have, but hasn't done much to hurt either.

Consider also where the Legislature was a few years ago. Gone are the days of the State Senate stonewalling on things like Michele Bachmann's anti-civil-rights constitutional amendement and voter suppression. Instead, the pressure is on the Republican minorities and Governor Pawlenty to support or defeat DFL priorities.

Lost in the bloviation and crowing from such conservative luminaries as my AATC Brain Trust colleagues, House Minority Leader Marty Seifert and David Strom of the Taxpayers' League, is what marginal DFL-sponsored tax increases would have paid for — a sound fiscal policy that would have fixed disintegrating roads, provided relief from property tax increases by bringing high-earning Minnesotans' tax rates in line with the middle and working classes, and pushed more funding into classrooms across the state.

Many of these initiatives were defeated. But there's still another legislative session coming next year, and the DFL will still control both chambers of the Legislature. I would much rather control the debate, the issues, and the agenda heading into an election than be forced, as former Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson was, to stonewall against a reactionary right-wing fusion of public policy and electoral strategy.

The public demands a progressive, people-powered public policy regime. It's only a matter of time — and a little improvement here and there in the DFL's PR machine. A frustrating session? To be sure. But worth being angry about? As Martin Luther King said and Senator Barack Obama echoed recently, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Right now, that arc just needs a little bit more organized pressure from DFL leaders and their supporters.

I'm a Democrat. This means that I should be incensed right now at the results of the recently-concluded legislative session, right?

Not so much.

The Political Panel

tptadmin — Fri, 9 Mar 2007 22:12:55 -0600

This week's quartet includes Democrats Mary Jo McGuire and Javier Morillo-Alicea and Republicans Andy Brehm and State Representative Mary Liz Holberg.

Capitol Doings

richard — Sat, 3 Mar 2007 10:35:18 -0600

Mary Lahammer fills us in on what got done during a snowy week at the Capitol.

We Have a Surplus! So Let's Raise Taxes!

David Strom — Thu, 1 Mar 2007 08:54:41 -0600

In 2005, then-Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson declared "we have enough money in the system. The general knock on Democrats is that we are 'tax and spenders.' Not if I am Majority Leader, we're not."

Of course, just a few months later the Senate proposed a slew of tax increases, including the highest income tax rate in the nation.

Democrats may not want to be known as "tax and spenders"; unfortunately for them and us, that is what they actually are. When push comes to shove, they push for huge tax increases to keep up with all the spending they want to do.

Democrats have been running away from their tax and spend image for years, and the huge majorities in both houses of the Legislature is built on a fragile foundation of Suburban DFL legislators from traditionally Republican Districts.

Almost to a person these Democrats ran as "fiscally conservative and socially moderate," and suburban voters responded. In the poisonous anti-Republican atmosphere that pervaded the election season, that was enough to get many Democrats elected this time around—in some cases by fewer than 100 votes.

This Legislative session, though, is going to be the acid test of whether there actually IS such a thing as a fiscally conservative Democrat in Minnesota any more.

Here's the scoop: In 2003 Governor Pawlenty was faced with a huge budget deficit, amounting to about 15% of the General Fund budget. Despite enormous pressures to raise taxes, Pawlenty and the Legislature crafted a budget that put the State back on the path to fiscal health without raising taxes.

Now here we are in 2007, with a budget surplus of over $2 billion and substantial Democrat majorities in both houses of the Legislature. You would think that this is political gold for the liberals: they get to increase spending for everything and everyone, all without raising taxes.

Have your cake and eat it too!

But noooooooo.... They just can't help themselves. Over the past 2 months of the session we have seen the Democrats propose a whole slew of tax increases, so far mostly aimed at "solving" the transportation "funding crisis." (Didn't we just pass a Constitutional Amendment to deal with that? Oh well, that was LAST year!)

Just yesterday (February 27th) the Mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul proposed not one, not two, but fully SEVEN new tax increases, plus new mechanisms for going into debt (raising FUTURE TAXES) just to fund this one issue area. That has to be a record! (Isn't there a fairy tale called "seven in one blow?")

And we haven't even touched spending increases for education, health care, welfare, early childhood, and on and on and on....

By the end of this session the Democrats will have done more to solidify their rightful image as 'tax and spenders' than all the Republican rhetoric could do in months of negative advertising. And for a simple reason: Democrats in fact ARE tax and spenders.

Unfortunately, as we found out over the past few years, once they are in power for a while Republicans too fall into the trap of becoming tax and spenders.

All this happens for a simple reason: When you are in government, especially at the level of State Legislators, you actually do precious little OTHER that deal with issues of taxes and spending.

After all, Legislators don't educate; they SPEND MONEY to pay others to educate.

Legislators don't enforce laws, they spend money for others to find and jail criminals.

Legislators don't build or fix roads; they spend money to pay others to do so.

With few exceptions, pretty much all Legislators do is tax and spend. That's why Democrats have traditionally been the party of government: they love to tax and spend.

Legislative Leaders

richard — Wed, 10 May 2006 06:00:00 -0500

All eyes are on the House Gallery as the most important leaders in the building — Sen. Dean Johnson and Rep. Steve Sviggum — join us live to set up the end of the session.

Week in Review

richard — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 04:15:00 -0600

Sen. Dean Johnson apologizes and hearings pick up the pace.

Headlines

richard — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 04:00:00 -0600

Senate Republicans file ethics charges against Dean Johnson, House and Senate committees turn an environmental bill into a loaded up Christmas tree, lawmakers want to ban a drinking device, the governor signs a bill to build a new hospital in Maple Grove.

Week in Review

richard — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 04:00:00 -0600

Gay marriage and the Dean Johnson controversy dominate.