2009 Legislative Review: The Continued Search for Balance

Politics, like life, consists of an on-going quest to find balance. Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don’t. Recently, Albert Lea began its newest quest to find long-term balance through the “Blue Zone” vitality project. This exciting project consists of community members committing to making a series of small positive changes that will have a huge impact on their lives.

In this spirit, I am encouraged to see Republicans making a series of positive changes which will clearly have a positive impact on the success of our community and our state. Locally, we are fortunate to have local businessman and community philanthropist, Al Arends leading us on a quest to find common-sense. It is refreshing to see so many new faces from all age groups engaged in the exchange of ideas.

At the state level, Republicans have made a series of small changes, beginning with their approach to education funding. Led by Governor Pawlenty, Republicans have staked out an aggressive and positive position supporting increased funding to our K-12 classrooms. While the Governor pushed hard this year for higher classroom funding levels, in the end he signed the majority’s education bill. Also, I had the privilege this year of participating in a positive, bi-partisan discussion on clean water and habitat enhancement through the use of the new dedicated sales tax revenue. Continued Republican leadership in this area can have only positive results.

In contrast, the same can be said for the DFL making a series of small negative decisions that had a huge impact on this year’s session. When the Governor initially announced his legislative package, the DFL quickly went on a “gotchya” offensive around the state. The DFL missed an opportunity to find solutions to Minnesota’s challenges and instead just identified a series of problems. Their attempt to simply build political support for their patch-work agenda probably prevented the DFL from finding their balance.

Next, the DFL went after a number of Pawlenty projects in an apparent attempt to create negotiating chips for the final end-game. Of local interest, the Governor’s Q-comp program and the JOBZ program were in the cross-hairs.

Finally, the House and Senate passed what I termed “misplaced” tax bills. On their first attempt, the House passed a tax bill that would have ended popular deductions like mortgage interest, property taxes, charitable contributions, education expenses and child-care. This political disaster did not make it out of conference committee until less than one hour prior to the end of session. Earlier, the House and the Senate leadership patched together an alternative $1 billion tax bill that was quickly vetoed by the Governor. In the end, the DFL did not even get all of their own to support this alternative tax bill. Locally, Representative Poppe (DFL Austin) voted no on the attempt to override the Governor’s veto.

Probably the biggest remaining challenge is to find a way to provide quality and affordable health care in a manner that does not bankrupt state coffers. As in Albert Lea’s Blue Zone project, a series of small steps can have a huge impact. Hopefully, the DFL and the Governor can begin to work together to make the reforms necessary to accomplish this outcome and in the end find balance.

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