Jan 01 Unalloting A Majority

At the end of the last Minnesota Legislative session, the talk was all about "unallotment" - the process by which the governor CAN, in the case of an budget shortfall, use his discretionary powers to "unallot" money from projects in order to balance the budget.  Well the unallotment battle took another turn this week as Ramsey County District Judge Kathleen Gearin issued a temporary restraining order on the Governor's unallotments.  In her ruling, Judge Gearin said (according to the Star Tribune)....

"The authority of the Governor to unallot is an authority intended to save the state in times of a previously unforeseen budget crisis," wrote Gearin. "It is not meant to be used as a weapon by the executive branch to break a stalemate in budget negotiations with the Legislature or to rewrite the appropriations bill."

However, as King Banaian points out, there was more to the quote.

The sentence appears on page 6 of the order. The full paragraph is as follows:

In the beginning of June of 2009, Defendants took the steps to unilaterally balance the budget by unalloting specific programs enacted into law during the session. By exercising his unallotment authority to apply to reductions in revenues that were determined by a forecast made before the budget had even been enacted and by not excluding reductions that were already known when the budget was enacted, the Governor crossed the line between legitimate exercise of his authority to unallot and interference with the Legislative power to make laws, including statutes allocating resources and raising revenues. The authority of the Governor to unallot is an authority intended to save the state in times of a previously unforeseen budget crisis, it is not meant to be used as a weapon by the executive branch to break a stalemate in budget negotiations with the Legislature or to rewrite the appropriations bill.

Which is exactly what House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Senate Majority Larry Pogemiller said at the time a position which is extremely shortsighted.  The whole purpose of having a budget is to give you a road map on how to make your money last through out the entire year (or in Minnesota's budget case) two years.  It is as if you had your entire paycheck for the year up front and then you spent it all on IPhones and big screen televisions and parties and then November comes and you have no money to put food on the table or pay the mortgage so you put necessities on the credit card.  Except that in the State of Minnesota's case, there is no credit card.  They are (like Utah) required to pass a balanced budget - something that the Minnesota Legislature did not do last year (spending outpaced revenues by almost $3 billion dollars) when they passed their "budget" bills last spring.  

King points out another fallacy in Judge Gearin's logic.

Timing appears to be an issue for Judge Gearin, and on this point I think a valid concern is raised. The trigger letter from MMB Commissioner Tom Hanson is dated June 16. Note that there is in the law NO requirement of waiting for a forecast from Finance or the state economist, just this letter; nowhere does the law say the Commissioner must wait for a new forecast. On that point I think she's wrong. A statement begins two days later on how the unallotment will be effected -- the biennium has not yet been set. Given Judge Gearin's fascination with June, it appears she thought that the Governor was obligated to call the Legislature back into special session. Yet that is nowhere in 16A.152. There is a vagueness that I for one would have liked clarified.

My point, then, is that while Judge Gearin says she can't rule on the constitutionality of the unallotment law, she is trying to put limits on where it can be used.

Governor Pawlenty is appealing the ruling saying that the Judge over-reached. In an interview with Fox News he laid out that one word that Democrats in DC and St. Paul have ignored...priorities (HT Jazz Shaw at TMV).

PAWLENTY: In Minnesota, we need to do things like prioritize military spending, veterans programs, and some others, but basically, everything else is going to have to be slowed down or cut to make this work. That’s a hard message, but these are tough decisions that are going to be need to be made in tough times. And that’s what leadership is going to have to be about, but unfortunately that’s not what we’re getting from this current Administration or this current Congress.

Emphasis in Jazz's transcript. 

In a down economy, tough decisions must be made - by families AND by governments.  The Utah Legislature has been making some awfully hard choices, in the name of balancing the budget and should be commended.  The Minnesota Legislature and the US Congress, on the other hand, seem to be incapable of making these hard choices.  As we head into the 2010 election season, maybe we need to replace these legislators with people who ARE able to discern what is a need and what is a want and who will be able to budget accordingly.  Wouldn't that be a novel idea?

Cross posted at Ladies Logic where your comments are welcome.