Between late afternoon Tuesday and early Wednesday morning, the Minnesota Legislature passed budget bills that will fund more than $35 billion in state government and end the 19-day shutdown. Most lawmakers, however, didn’t have time to read the bills, which were only made available hours before the votes.

The plans, which Gov. Mark Dayton agreed to 10 days into the shutdown, were opposed by most DFLers, who voted against them en masse. The final versions contained far fewer cuts than the versions that Dayton vetoed three weeks ago.

The transportation bill, for instance, avoids the sharp 85 percent cuts to the Met Council, but backfills much of the cut with increased costs to suburban transit. Rep. Frank Hornstein (DFL-Minneapolis) called it a “duct tape and bailing wire fix” in a statement.

Little time to read bills

Rep. Jean Wagenius (DFL-Minneapolis) complained that lawmakers hadn’t had time to assess the impact of the environmental bill, which includes what she described as subsidies for factory farmers.

“All session we’ve been told that the outcome of this session is going to be efficiency, reform, redesign,” she said on the House floor. “There’s been no efficiency, reform or redesign — just budget cuts and shifts with no idea of how these cuts are going to affect the environment.”

Most bills, some of which sprawled to hundreds of pages in length, were made available to lawmakers only right before their vote.

But the sticking point, as it has been all session, is taxes. Republicans opposed all DFL efforts to increase taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents. Instead, the state relies heavily on one-time fixes like a school payment shift and tobacco bonding, which Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township) described as “dangerous and irresponsible.”

The tax bill was posted only two hours before the vote.

House Majority Leader Matt Dean (R-Dellwood) accused Democrats of being “preoccupied with raising taxes,” saying the DFL forgot they had a job to do.

Dean said he wished more Democrats would have crossed over to vote for the budget bills to “be part of the solution.”

“We need to get Minnesota back to work we need to stop pointing figures,” Dean said.

A ‘beg, borrow and steal’ budget

House Minority Leader Paul Thissen said the 2011 legislative session represented a “colossal failure of leadership on behalf of Republicans.”

“This is a Republican proposal, a Republican budget for which you are responsible,” Thissen said. “It borrows and steals from Minnesota’s future and begs the people of our state to look the other way as once again you simply kick the can down the road.”

DFLers said the one-time accounting gimmicks in the bills meant that the next legislature would again face a more than $4 billion shortfall, and that the massive cuts contained in the bill would lead to increased property taxes across the state.

“You didn’t do your job because you didn’t protect the people’s interests. You protected the richest’s special interests,” Thissen told Republican lawmakers. “You didn’t do your job because you didn’t solve the problem — you begged, borrowed, and stole.”

House Minority Leader Paul Thissen Thursday afternoon lauded Gov. Mark Dayton’s offer to agree to Republican legislative leaders’ June 30 budget proposal.

“Given that the Republicans have repeatedly and publicly said that policy issues are off the table, the Republicans have every reason to accept their own budget offer,” Thissen wrote in a statement.

He noted Republicans have rejected seven budget compromises without offering any new ideas throughout the two-week shutdown. He said GOP legislators have “gone to incredible lengths” to protect millionaires and corporate special interests.

“By offering the Republicans their budget, Governor Dayton is rising above politics, above partisanship, and making Minnesota his top priority. It is now up to the Republicans to end this costly and destructive government shutdown by accepting and immediatlely passing this offer. The clock is ticking.”

Business leaders, Democrats and LGBT groups are unified in one aspect of their opposition to a Republican Senate bill that would but a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the ballot in 2012: Gay marriage is a distraction from Minnesota’s economic needs.

House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, in a statement released in response to the bill introduced Tuesday, blasted the GOP for not spending more time fixing Minnesota’s budget.

“With only four weeks to go to balance the budget, this is not the time to launch an effort to amend the state constitution to further divide Minnesotans from one another,” he said. “Instead of focusing on gay marriage, Senator [Warren] Limmer should get to work on the Public Safety budget that he’s responsible for. Engaging in delays and distractions is unacceptable.”

“The clock is ticking,” he added. “Minnesotans are waiting for an honest, responsible GOP budget.”

Charlie Zelle, CEO of Jefferson Bus Lines and chair of the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce, criticized the push for the amendment.

“In so many ways, this constitutional amendment is bad for Minnesota employers and a distraction from the real priority for the state: growing the economy,” he said in a statement. “Instead, we need to move Minnesota forward by pursuing policies that are good for business, good for all Minnesota families and will make our state stronger and more competitive.”

He added, “Minnesota’s CEOs and small business owners alike need state lawmakers to stay focused on placing Minnesota’s economy and business environment back on track. A constitutional amendment against full inclusion is not only a distraction but would create a significant setback for Minnesota businesses.”

Ann Kaner-Roth, executive director of Project 515, said that research demonstrates that communities inclusive of gay and lesbian couples often perform better economically.

“The proposed amendment is anti-jobs, anti-business and anti-family,” she said, “A wealth of research finds that inclusion strengthens the economy and Minnesota employers know it. That’s why they are leading the way by implementing inclusive policies in the workplace. We hope state leaders will remember that equality is an advantage.”

Monica Meyer, executive director of OutFront Minnesota, agreed with that assessment.

“Even though the Legislature has critical budgetary issues that need to be addressed, they are taking valuable time to introduce a constitutional amendment that would discriminate against Minnesotans,” she said. “This is completely counter to the direction public opinion is moving. Plus, this constitutional amendment is redundant. Minnesota already has a law in place defining marriage. This proposal takes our state in the wrong direction and tarnishes our constitution with discrimination that Minnesotans don’t support.”

Project 515 and OutFront Minnesota offered evidence to back up their claims.

“Employers with engaged workers have 2.6 times more earnings per share growth and twice the annual net income compared to other companies and inclusive policies are among the strongest indicators of engagement,” according to research by Gallup and the Kenexa Research Institute. The groups also cited studies showing that cities that are more inclusive attract more talented workers, especially in the technology fields.

According to MinnPost, before the announcement, Gov. Mark Dayton said: “I strongly oppose a constitutional amendment that would prohibit same-sex marriage. It [a prohibition] already exists in state law.”

DFL chair Ken Martin sent a passionate appeal to party member in an email Tuesday evening.

It’s official. Today, Republicans in the legislature officially introduced their constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage and write discrimination into our state constitution.

Our fight starts now.

Throughout history, our party has always stood up for equality and fairness. And now we need to mount a strong offense to ensure that the Republicans are not able to turn back the clock on equal rights.

But this fight is not just about fairness and equality.

It’s about our belief that every person in Minnesota should have the ability to marry the person they love. It’s about our belief that government should not sanction discrimination. It’s about creating a culture of respect in society so that every child will be safe at school and have a healthy, respectful learning environment free of harassment and violence.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Family Council, a conservative religious organization that opposes LGBT rights, asked its members to contact their legislators in support of the amendment.

“After seven years, a bill to allow the people of Minnesota to vote on marriage has been introduced in the state Senate. This is fantastic news, but we need you to email your State Senator and tell him or her to pass the marriage amendment bill and put it on the ballot for the people to vote,” the group said. “Remind them that the right to vote is our most important civil right and that this is an issue for the people to decide themselves.”

MFC added, “Legislators are not being asked to decide if marriage is the union of a man and a woman. They are being asked to let the people decide this issue. Demand that House leadership introduce and pass the marriage amendment today.”

Republican leadership in the Minnesota Legislature unveiled its job creation proposals on Monday and filed the first bills intended to boost employment and reduce the deficit. The House bills would create “priority-based budgeting” and scale back the environmental permitting process, while the Senate introduced a bill to reduce income and property taxes for businesses. The latter policy drew strong criticism from DFLers, unions and nonprofit groups.

Freshman Rep. Dan Fabian (R-Roseau) said of the changes to the environmental permitting bill, “This a bill, as we said during the campaign, it’s about jobs. This is a bill that I think can be bipartisan.”

The bill would shorten the amount of time it takes for businesses to get a permit, would allow developers to write Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) “rather than a responsible government unit such as a state agency or local government,” and “repeal Minnesota Pollution Control Agency rules that “prohibiting construction before permit issuance for projects requiring National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System water permits.”

He said the changes would help Minnesota businesses because “the permitting process at this time takes too long.”

Another freshman, Rep. King Banaian (R-St. Cloud), has offered a bill that would change Minnesota’s budgeting system to a zero-based budget or as he called it “priority-based budgeting.”

“This bill is about some very basic economics,” he said. “Instead of looking at an agency or department, we are going to ask them to look at a service, ask them how do you provide a service to us, how much does is cost, who do you serve, compare us to other states so that we have some benchmarking.”

It would also establish a sunset commission that would evaluate state agencies and boards every 10 years and look at reorganization or elimination of those that are no longer needed.

On the Senate side, a bill has been introduced that would cut the corporate tax and business property tax rates.

“We want to make Minnesota the best place to start a business,” said Sen. Geoff Michel (R-Edina). “We will do anything to help a job creator.”

He said the GOP’s goal was to give job creators a reason to choose Minnesota and take a risk in Minnesota.

“Minnesota has the third highest business tax in the country. We are going to cut that in half over 6 years,” he said. “We are going to roll back the statewide business property tax to roughly 2009 levels and cut off the inflator.” That inflator means that the tax rises every year.

He added that there would be a cost to the deficit in cutting taxes.

“There would be a $200 million cost in tax relief, half in income tax, the other on property tax relief. We will make up for that with cuts in spending,” he said.

The DFL, unions and nonprofits suggested that cutting taxes for corporations might not be wise.

Rep. Paul Thissen of Minneapolis said that it “does nothing to solve the state’s budget deficit. In fact it sounds like it may be heading a little bit in the other direction.”

Rep. Tim Mahoney of St. Paul said that many of the proposals did nothing to create jobs now, especially the environmental permitting changes. “The problem with regulation reform, the way our system is set up, no changes can take effect until 2012. We need jobs in June 2011 not June 2012.”

He added, “The only real job creator is a stimulus creator. We need some kind of a bonding bill that puts people back to work. I’m still trying to figure out how those regulations will fill that particular hole.”

Sen. Tom Bakk of Cook said, “The facts are that the income tax cuts for the wealthiest Minnesotans did not result in any new jobs,” he said referring to past tax cuts from previous administrations.

The Minnesota Budget Project, a project of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, laid out several reasons why corporate tax cuts may not create jobs: they don’t guarantee growth, and state taxes are a minor expense for corporations.

“In the real world, tax cuts have not brought about stronger-than-average economic growth,” wrote the MBP’s Scott Russell. “Check out Ohio. It eliminated its corporate income tax yet its economic performance has been average at best.”

He added, “The proposed tax cuts would create a deeper budget hole now and add to the challenge policymakers already face to close a $6.2 billion budget deficit. In an age of accountability and transparency, it raises questions about whether these tax cuts are the most effective way to promote job growth and shared prosperity in Minnesota.”

Minnesota AFL-CIO president Shar Knutson has strong words for the GOP jobs plan.

“Republican legislators showed middle class Minnesotans exactly where they stand today,” she said in a statement. “Their proposals would give big corporations a free ride all while lowering pay and cutting benefits for hard-working middle class families.”

She praised Mark Dayton (whom her group supported during the gubernatorial campaign), “Governor Dayton is already working on a jobs and infrastructure bill to help put Minnesotans back to work and a plan to balance the budget fairly.Republican lawmakers should be following the Governor’s lead in helping build a better Minnesota.”

DFL Rep. Ryan Winkler of Golden Valley sent a letter to Majority Leader Matt Dean on Thursday pressing for a hearing on an amendment that would direct the Minnesota House to pass a budget bill before it can deal with constitutional amendments such as one banning marriage rights for same-sex couples. Republicans had promised to put the deficit ahead of wedge social issues but religious conservatives have already begun a campaign to get them on the ballot.

“We should not spend our time debating divisive social issues and constitutional amendments,” wrote Winkler. “Putting social issues on the ballot will do nothing to get Minnesotans back to work, deliver the highest-quality education for our students or improve Minnesota’s quality of life.”

He added, “As Speaker [Kurt] Zellers himself has stated, job creation and the budget deficit must be the Legislature’s highest priorities.”

Rep. Ryan Winkler

The rules amendment, offered by DFL Rep. Paul Thissen of Minneapolis, would have forced the House to deal with the budget before proposing constitutional amendments. Majority Leader Matt Dean instead moved to have it referred to committee, and his motion passed along party lines. Winkler said that it should be heard in committee as soon as possible.

Already the issue of a constitutional amendment banning relationship rights for same-sex couples has popped up. Next Friday, the Minnesota Family Council is hosting its “Family and Marriage Summit,” which will focus on getting an amendment on the ballot in 2012. The group invited all Minnesota legislators to the event.

And on religious right radio last week, Republicans vowed to push the issue forward. Two newly elected legislators, Sens. Dan Hall and Pam Wolf, of Bloomington and Spring Lake Park respectively, discussed the upcoming session on Pastor Brad Brandon‘s radio program.

“On social issues, I would like to see something to move forward with the [Defense of Marriage Act],” Wolf said.

“DOMA we will get to, the marriage amendment for sure,” Hall said.

“I think we will see that on the ballot in 2012,” Wolf said, “but the top priority will be getting our economy going.”

The Minnesota Family Council is already pushing back on the amendment to make fixing the budget deficit the top priority. Chuck Darrell, communications director for the group, tweeted on Thursday, “Same crowd that boasted they’d legalize [same-sex marriage] in 2011 offers phony rules amendment to scare GOP away from ‘divisive’ marriage amendment.’”

But despite noise from the Minnesota Family Council and some Republican legislators, the Minnesota Log Cabin Republicans said they trust GOP leadership will stick to their promise to focus on the budget.

“The incoming Majority Leader [of the state Senate] and Speaker [of the state House of Representatives] have made it crystal clear they’re not going to be focusing on social issues,” Mark Kneif, chair of the Minnesota Log Cabins, told reporter James Sanna. “The Minnesota Family Council is pushing that…but I don’t think they’ll get much traction.”

Read Winkler’s letter:

rw.letter.to.rep.dean.1.6.11 –

On the first day of the legislative session, the Republican majority in the Minnesota House voted down an amendment to the rules that would put fixing the state budget deficit before any constitutional amendments. The rule, offered by Rep. Paul Thissen (DFL-Minneapolis), was referred to the Rules Committee for further consideration by a vote of 74 to 60. DFL Rep. Ryan Winkler of Golden Valley criticized the vote as an indication that the Republican majority may prioritize delving into divisive social issues over fixing the budget deficit.

“We are facing a budget crisis of serious and historic proportions,” Thissen said on the House floor. “You stated that other more divisive issues should wait until we get that constitutional duty of balancing our budget done. It’s something that I think we’ve all agreed on publicly, and it’s an amendment that says and makes clear to the people of Minnesota what our priorities are.”

Rep. Paul Thissen. Photo: PaulThissen.com

He said, “[The amendment] says that no constitutional amendments will be considered by this body until we actually get our budget balanced and a balanced budget bill signed into law.”

But, Majority Leader Matt Dean moved to have the amendment sent to committee.

“We are focused on moving forward on process and we want to make sure we do this in a thoughtful and in a transparent manner,” he said adding that he wanted members to have a chance to examine the amendment. “However, we want to be able to have our members informed and we want have input from outside the building a well.”

But Thissen said the amendment, which is two sentences long, is self-explanatory.

“It is a straightforward amendment, easily understandable,” he said. “And something we can all agree on is that we should get our budget balanced before we deal with constitutional amendments and other issues.”

The amendment offered by Thissen read:

During an odd-numbered year, a House or Senate bill that proposes a constitutional amendment must not be considered in a committee or on the calendar for the day, the fiscal calendar, or any other floor calendar until bills necessary to provide a balanced general fund budget for the biennium beginning on July 1 of that year have been enacted into law. During an even-numbered year, if the most recent forecast of state revenues and expenditures predicts a deficit for the biennium ending on June 30 of the next odd-numbered year, a House or Senate bill that proposes a constitutional amendment must not be considered in a committee or on the calendar for the day, the fiscal calendar, or any other floor calendar until bills necessary to eliminate that projected deficit have been enacted into law.

Following the vote to send the bill to committee — mainly along partisan lines — Rep. Ryan Winkler released a statement criticizing the move.

“Minnesota is facing historic economic and fiscal challenges. State lawmakers have just a few months to solve a gaping $6.2 billion deficit while preserving essential public services,” said Winkler. “But Republicans in the legislature would rather focus their attention on a divisive social agenda that denies some Minnesotans the right to marriage, denies women the right to choose, and denies seniors the right to vote.”

The ad, which documents its research at the site missedvotes.com, states that Emmer missed 20 percent of votes, or “142 missed votes in 2010 alone. Votes on education, veterans’ affairs, and jobs.”

“The Alliance for a Better Minnesota gets its numbers right,” reports MPR’s Poligraph, later concluding that “most of those votes were indeed on significant issues facing the state, including education funding, taxes and the environment.”

But it offers this context:

This year’s session lasted a little over 14 weeks, and Emmer missed votes on 15 of those days. So, that’s roughly equivalent to one day for every week the legislature met. However, he was present for some votes on eight of those days. Furthermore, Emmer missed most of those votes on a few days clustered at the end of the session; he did not take one day off every week for the entire session as the ad implies. Emmer’s campaign manager Cullen Sheehan didn’t say where he was on those days, only that he takes his job “very seriously.”

KSTP’s Tom Hauser’s fact-check found the ad to be “attention grabbing and for the most part accurate. However, it’s also misleading.”

It’s true, says Hauser, that Emmer went from missing 4 percent of votes in 2009 to 23 percent of votes this year. But viewers should note, he adds, that other gubernatorial contenders, including Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Rep. Paul Thissen, missed a higher percentage of votes compare to the previous year. (Kelliher went from 4 percent in 2009 to 11 percent this year; Thissen went from 5 to 13 percent — both still well below Emmer’s House-leading missed-vote rate.)

Hauser also takes issue with the ad’s narrator, who asks, “What would happen if you missed one out of every five days of work for a year?”

That’s misleading, because it incorrectly equates one vote for one day of work; the Minnesota Legislature sometimes has multiple votes on a given day.

Over six years as a U.S. Senator, Hauser says in closing, Mark Dayton missed 3 percent of votes.

KSTP is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, which donated $100,000 to MN Forward, the conservative PAC that has produced ads supporting Emmer (Hauser gave that ad a B+ grade).

Also: yaks!

—Rep. Paul Thissen, (DFL-Minneapolis), District 63A

—Rep. John Lesch (DFL-St. Paul), District 66A

—Independence Party

—Rep. Laura Brod (R-New Prague), District 25A

— Kevin Watterson, public affairs director, House Republican Caucus

—Minnesota Department of Agriculture

Minnesota Capitol. Photo: Wikipedia

Three bills that would assist same-sex couples in the event of one partner’s death were passed by the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Legislators recalled stories of couples who underwent hardships because of inequality in the law, while Tom Prichard of the Minnesota Family Council called the bills “discriminatory” and said they are “unfair to married couples.”

Rep. Frank Hornstein, DFL-Minneapolis, offered a bill that would allow equal access in personal asset distributions. If a couple in a domestic partnership hasn’t drawn up a will, the measure states, assets in the event one partner dies would go to the surviving individual, just as it would with married spouses.

Hornstein said he was inspired to help rectifiy the inequalities of the law after learning of the difficulties faced by a pair in his district.

“There’s a couple in my district, Jim and Duane, and Duane had medical issues he was dealing with and was hospitalized. And his partner could not see him, he didn’t have visitation rights in in the same way that a heterosexual couple would,” he told the committee. “And it really got me thinking about the inequality many of our neighbors and constantly face on a day to day basis.”

Ann Kaner-Roth of Project 515, a group working to educate Minnesotans about the inequalities in Minnesota law, explained the bill, saying, “Essentially the protections would allow the assets of someone who dies without a will in place to be distributed to their domestic partner.”

The bill passed the committee by a voice vote, as did a bill to allow a surviving domestic partner to sue for wrongful death. Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, said the bill is modeled after Minnesota’s Fortune 500 companies.

“The domestic partner definition in this bill, and in all these bills, was taken from some of the most esteemed Minnesota based fortune 500 companies,” he said. “Already our most trusted corporate citizens are way ahead of us on this. I know there are strong opinions on this, but I trust you will vote your conscience.”

A third bill, sponsored by Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-St. Paul, and passed on Wednesday, addressed Hornstein’s concerns. It would allow domestic partners to share health data in certain situations with the same access that spouses and family members have. It would have allowed Duane’s doctors to alert Jim about Duane’s condition when he was hospitalized.

The main voice of oppposition to the bills was Tom Prichard of the Minnesota Family Council.

“Basically, what they are attempting to do is redefine marriage,” he said. “This is discriminatory… It’s also unfair to married couples because married couples have a legal status and legal obligations where as these individuals are getting the benefits without the responsibilities and fundamentally this is an effort to redefine marriage.”

Despite Prichard’s testimony, all three bills were passed and placed on the General Register. The House could vote on them as soon as next week.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

STATE CAPITOL: Minnesota better get mentioned during T-Paw’s big speech. Maybe those cop lay-offs and school-aid shifts too, when Gov. Pawlenty delivers his State of the State for Feb. 11. [Hot Dish Politics; West Central Tribune]

MINNEAPOLIS: Oh, “No“! Paul Thissen charges fellow DFL gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher with stealing his “Yes-No” refrain. [Polinaut]

ST. PAUL: Lucky 13. The DFL gubernatorial race sounds like so much fun, someone new has signed up. [Associated Press]

MINNEAPOLIS: City Council president defends paying for personal expenses with campaign funds. Barb Johnson’s life is a perpetual campaign, and “one bad-hair day gets published on the Internet.” [Star Tribune]

ST. CLOUD: “I’m scared of this city.” A public forum inspired by the posting of anti-Muslim cartoons could be just another in a string of “kumbaya meetings” if no action is taken.[St. Cloud Times]

ALBERT LEA: Suit filed over abuse at nursing home. The details do not live up to the name “Good Samaritan Society,” to say the least. [Albert Lea Tribune]