How Time Slips Away

April 29, 2012


                                            How Time Slips Away



"Gee, It's Funny How Time Slips Away" has been sung by many, but Willie Nelson, the grizzlied cowboy, changed the "Gee" to "Ain't," and made it his own. It's an appropriate anthem for the Minnesota Legislature, as well.

Kurt Zellers, Republican Speaker of the House, would like to end the 2012 Session tomorrow, April 30. If that happens, the Legislature's string of zeros would be kept intact and our paragons of gravitas enabled to shag out of the Capitol before it falls down.

Neither is apt to happen. Those crafty senators and representatives habitually wait to pass the stuff they want until there's no time left for public debate. Still in play at the llth hour are the Vikings stadium, the bonding bill for roads, bridges and buildings, a Republican tax cut for small businesses, and a further GOP effort aimed at destroying the teachers' union. There's no end to the abortion issue, and so far no real beginning by racino aficionados. But both prefer stealth to straight up, and can be expected to move soon, intent on slipping in under the radar while major portions of the bodies are diverted by the business of striking the tents preparatory to moving on.

Without fear of contradiction, this must be labeled the worst do-nothing session within easy recall. Temperamentally and intellectually unsuited, the right wing majorities in the Legislature have proven to be overmatched by the responsibility of governing and befuddled by the intransigence of the farther-right T-Party. The GOP was incredibly oblivious as the party till was being emptied and crass in their disregard of Senate decorum, if not rules, by delaying announcement of the previous Senate Majority Leader's resignation due to extra-marital relations with her chief aide. Speculation inevitably centered on whether the delay ensued while GOP elders debated damage control strategy among themselves, i.e., whether to stonewall or come clean. They at last decided to come clean while giving a pass to the Assistant Senate Majority Leader who was also the prime delayer.

Republicans swept control of the Legislature in 2010 because Minnesotans were aching over diminishing governmental services in cities and towns. Schools, highways, transportation needs, support for the poor and homeless, and a myriad less visible government services fell victim during the two terms, 2002-2010, of Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Pawlenty, or (it's hard to resist) Pawlentyofnuthin', was a career politician, an early disciple of Grover Norquist, who fronts a right wing activist group in Washington, D.C. Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform have brilliantly combined no new taxes with no bipartisanship to form what has become Republican operating strategy nationwide. Norquist's no new taxes policy and pledge, which most Republican politicians have signed, is the easiest pander ever offered to the American electorate, and it works simply because no one likes to pay taxes.

Pawlentyofnuthin' signed Norquist's pledge and the people of Minnesota bought in. He left office after eight years of coldly calculated underfunding. Government departments, notably the Department of Transportation, were forced to reduce services. The Department of Education's reserves were pillaged, as was the Tobacco Settlement Fund, and on and on.

Cities, counties, towns and villages suffered major losses in state support, sending property taxes zooming upward while government services continued to sink Vital institutions, particularly schools, struggled to maintain their levels of performance, poor peoples' sufferings intensified, merely because they were poor. Pawlenty left Minnesota with a 2.4 billion dollar debt to run for president, oddly enough.

The second-raters who rose to the leadership of the GOP succeeded in gulling the electorate once again with the Norquist tax humbug. They continued Pawlenty's strategy of under-funding, closed the government down by refusing to negotiate seriously on the state budget, while obstructing Democratic-Farmer-Labor Governor Mark Dayton at every turn.

They have no other plans going forward, but to continue to obstruct, underfund, and reduce taxes. They have no discernible strategy for dealing with the budget deficit, which actually increased by $500 million during last summer's government shutdown. Likely at the behest of the National GOP, they have increased church-state tensions by reviving the abortion controversy. Anything to divide us, you know.

Minnesota Republicans' signal accomplishment was to secure passage in 2011 of a referendum on two amendments to the state Constitution to be voted upon in this year's general election. One amendment would require a state-issued identification of each voter. The other would define marriage as a union of a man and a woman. The first is an unconstitutional violation of the first amendment of the Federal Constitution. The GOP cannot be unaware of that fact, but makes it's appeal even so to the fearful and to the racially biased. There is no need for any such license. Voting scandals are just not Minnesotan. But the Secretary of State estimates that in excess of 700,000 eligible voters could be barred from exercising a basic right. Because most are thought to incline toward the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party the right wing would gladly strip them of that right. Voter ID, as it's known, was put to a referendum because the right wing dared not risk its failure as legislation and its certain veto, had it passed. Amendments cannot be vetoed, thus Minnesota Republicans' tactic was cowardly as well as venal.

The second proposed amendment would deny the rights and benefits of marriage to same sex couples thereby encasing exclusion and cruelty into law. Paradoxically, Christian sects that most fervently oppose same sex marriage fail to see the contradiction between Christian principles and codifying the practice of exclusion and cruelty. That's not only very strange. It's also a great argument in support of separation of church and state.

Rather than lock-step obstruction, Republicans could indulge their fondness for amendments by advocating a reduction in the size of the Legislature by half. That would leave the House with 67 members and Senate with 33. Both would require amending the state Constitution. Such reductions would also reduce the standing around time that now takes up January, February, March and most of April. It could make the bodies more efficient and the sessions shorter. Shorter, more productive sessions would raise public esteem of the Legislature, and that would be a good thing. The lachrymose Willie would get his song back, and that would be a good thing, too.



Howard Cox