Finding Reform in St. Paul: behind every door and around every corner

The word "reform" is an often overused term in politics. A google search of "reform in politics" turns up over 48 million hits. Sometimes the concept of reform is repackaged into another term, say "change in politics" at 190 million google hits; 62.5 million for "Obama Change in politics."

While I mostly disagree with Obama's change or reform attempts, I cannot criticize him for his aggressive search for a new way of doing things. I like to say that there is reform behind every door and around every corner. Right now, the Obama presidency is seeing an unprecedented ability to open doors and get around corners that never were before thought possible. Ultimately, history will determine whether or not he is using his pulpit to force open the right doors.

In contrast, as an observer this past legislative session, I saw very little progress in finding real reform in St. Paul. Instead, the leadership of the majority party perfected the role of closing doors, dispensing political rhetoric and finger pointing. Education and health-care are the two opportunities for reform that I have blogged about previously.
http://tiltingagainst.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
http://tiltingagainst.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html


Given that these two areas account for almost 70% of the budget, reform in other areas becomes irrelevant from a numbers perspective. The attached link shows a great pie chart of the State's budget. http://budgetforum.senate.mn/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/slide93.gif

The Democrats' door slamming episode ended with few new ideas even making it out of committee or being quickly killed on the floor. Even attempts to close loopholes on outright fraud and abuse of the welfare system were thwarted. To the D's anguish, they unintentionally left the door open a crack for Governor Pawlenty to utilize the unallotment process.


No one claims that unallotment is the preferred method of obtaining reform. Reform using a blunt object is always more messy than the scalpel. Yet, the Democrats posturing at the Capital left all the doors locked and the hallways blocked.


The legislative master that he is, Pawlenty remains a step ahead of his opposition. Many of his unallotment cuts are deferred until 2011, meaning that the legislature has next year to actually make reforms. If the Democratic leadership in the legislature cannot get their act together and implement "change", then the bulk of the Pawlenty cuts go into effect.


In effect, the Governor has established a new end game. Normally, the first year of session sets the budget for two years and government shut down occurs on July 1 in an impasse. This time around, Pawlenty avoided a shut down and set the rules for what will happen next July 1st if Democrats cannot perform. As much as they will posture, Democrats will not be able to avoid responsibility for a meltdown and the "No Reform" label can be placed on their candidates foreheads.


A well reasoned, disciplined approach from the minority should be able to capture this opportunity and broker reform opportunities while the Governor watches from the national campaign trail. Governor Pawlenty has handed House and Senate Republicans a set of keys that will open many doors that are normally unavailable for a party with minority status.


I hope that our caucuses can use the keys that have been handed to them to promote real reform, not just old worn-out agendas.

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