MN$mapOne of Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s unilateral “unallotment” budget cuts will be temporarily undone under a restraining order issued Wednesday.  

The ruling reverses cuts to the Minnesota Supplemental Aid Special Diet program retroactively to Nov. 1, pending a hearing in the case set for March 1, 2010.

But the order doesn’t affect Pawlenty’s unallotment cuts to other programs. Nor does it prohibit Pawlenty or the state Legislature “from the exercise of their legitimate constitutional power in light of the current budget issues facing the State of Minnesota.”

The suit was filed by six Minnesotans on behalf of themselves and others who either receive or would be eligible to receive the aid.

Acknowledging her own duty to “tread lightly when dealing with ’separation of powers issues,’” Ramsey County District Court Judge Kathleen Gearin wrote in her order (pdf): ”It is equally important that the Governor tread lightly when dealing with separation of powers issues.”

Gearin is familiar to many from her service a year ago on the State Canvassing Board overseeing the U.S. Senate election recount between Al Franken and Norm Coleman.

She was careful to say in issuing the restraining order that her decision was based on process, not policy, considerations:

It is important that all parties understand that the decision made by this Court today has nothing to do with the merit or lack of merit of the individual programs unalloted by the Governor. The Court’s decision was based on the way he unalloted, not what he unalloted. … Those budget and policy decisions are not the business of the courts unless they are made in a way that violates the Constitution.

Gearin’s objections don’t sound favorable to Pawlenty:

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.

[Via MPR and AP]