St. Cloud Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency

If the 2015 legislative session proves anything, it’s that making important public policy doesn’t hinge on public money in Minnesota any more. Rather, it’s driven (or obstructed) by a handful of top elected leaders refusing to compromise.

How else do you explain Minnesota’s 201 lawmakers and its governor ending the legislative session without touching about $1 billion of an almost $2 billion surplus?

How else do you explain a governor vetoing an entire bipartisan education bill simply because it does not contain his top priority? Never mind that few legislators see it that way — as do even fewer groups with vested interests in education.

How else do you explain the Republican House speaker on one hand championing more investment in public transportation but refusing to pay for it with new revenues? Instead, pull funds from other unidentified public programs and run up the credit card.

How else do you explain a DFL Senate leader and that GOP House leader both having five months to conduct their bodies’ business yet to make deadline each has to ram through critical bills in the session’s final moments without allowing debate or even time to read those measures?

Sadly, those scenarios in this 2015 session reiterate a political mindset most Minnesotans have cringed at since Tim Pawlenty was elected governor more than 10 years ago: When government is divided, put your political priorities ahead of common-sense compromises on major policy issues.

This session that’s best reflected in Dayton’s insistence on universal preschool in the biennial education bill. The bill added $400 million in new funding to education and had Senate and House support. That wasn’t good enough, and news reports Tuesday indicate Dayton and House GOP leaders were within $25 million of a compromise yet they could not come together.

The result? A veto that not only thwarts a decent education bill but puts in jeopardy the state’s next two-year budget plan and even risks another government shutdown.

Perhaps what’s even worse is this topic seemed ripe for a compromise. Yet instead of all the leaders giving enough to make some kind of progress, they retreated and ultimately put their own desires first, no matter the cost to Minnesotans.