Dramatic finish ahead for lawmakers completing tardy budget

Published 4:14 pm Friday, June 12, 2015

But the environment budget’s defeat doesn’t guarantee a shutdown is imminent. Lawmakers started lobbying each other soon after the bill failed by just one vote, trying to secure the final vote necessary to ensure its passage. A new vote could be taken yet Friday.

Legislators agreed to a one-day special session to pass the final pieces of a budget expected to total nearly $42 billion over the next two years, but Democrats’ hesitance about a bill they say would gut environmental regulations threatened hopes for a quick resolution. If lawmakers can’t come to an agreement Friday, they could stay even longer — legislators are already 25 days late in finishing their work.

They have until June 30 to finalize a budget and avoid a partial government shutdown.

As legislative leaders worked to round up enough support for the environment bill, other outstanding pieces of the budget fell into place Friday.

A public school budget, a centerpiece of the special session that boosts school spending by $525 million, overwhelmingly passed both the House and Senate. Republican Rep. Jenifer Loon said the bulk of that money would go toward the state’s per-pupil funding formula, providing for 2 percent increases in each of the next two years. After vetoing an original bill that put up less money, Dayton initially held out for a prized preschool initiative but relented with the assurance of more money.

Many House Democrats decried the lack of a statewide preschool program but credited the governor for securing a larger windfall for public schools on a second try.

“Thank God for Gov. Dayton … for pulling Republicans, kicking and screaming, to a budget that is actually going to do something for our schools,” House Minority Leader Paul Thissen said.

The bill also allows school districts to resume classes this year before Labor Day, which falls on a late date this year.

Ahead of Friday, many lawmakers expressed relief that the special session would allow them to officially begin their summer break. Passage of the bills was also essential to avoiding a partial government shutdown that would idle up to 9,400 employees and disrupt services.

But House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, a Minneapolis Democrat, struck a different tone.

“Today is not any reason to celebrate because we shouldn’t have been here in the first place,” he said.

The overtime session was sparked by Gov. Mark Dayton’s veto of three budget bills, primarily an education bill that he said didn’t do enough to invest in schools. But other issues cropped up over weeks of private negotiations.

The environment bill gained attention — and resistance from Democrats — because it eliminates an oversight board at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and scales back other regulatory requirements in the name of more-efficient permitting.

On Thursday night, Dayton pleaded with fellow Democrats to pass the bill to avoid a July 1 partial government shutdown that would close state parks. Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk said he couldn’t guarantee its passage and said Dayton’s pitch likely hadn’t changed many minds.

Just 12 of 39 Senate Democrats voted to approve the bill, joining with 21 Republicans to fall just one vote short of the 34-vote threshold.

As the Senate took up the environment bill, Sen. David Tomassoni, an Iron Range Democrat, urged colleagues to pass it. He stressed the bill’s aid for poultry farmers hit hard by bird flu, and reminded other senators of state workers looking at possible layoff if the budget isn’t resolved. And Tomassoni said opponents of the bill were inflating the expected effects of regulatory changes.

Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, disagreed, quoted a newspaper story that called the “environmental vandalism” and said lawmakers should pull the bill back for a makeover.

“We do not need to take our environment backwards in order to approve a state budget,” Marty argued. Lawmakers ultimately laid the bill over to take up the jobs bill instead.

The session’s setting gave the gathering a historic feature: Lawmakers convened outside the Capitol for the first time in 110 years because of the renovation project. They were meeting in temporary chambers in an adjacent office building and using old-fashioned voice roll-call votes on bills.

House members crowded in, some laughing at the oddity of their makeshift chamber as they hunted for seats and posed for photos. Without their own desks, which usually have voting buttons and microphones, the 100-plus representatives will have to pass around a shared microphone to talk or vote on each of the six bills on the agenda.

“Well, it’s historic,” Rep. Jim Knoblach, a St. Cloud Republican, said as he strolled in.