State lawmakers need to pass something

Last week, Minnesota legislators ended a nine-day special session with an exchange of offers and pleadings — but no resolutions. No deals were reached on legislation both parties said was necessary, including on reforming police accountability in Minnesota and to help rebuild neighborhoods damaged by arson and looting after the May 25 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

For now, it’s unclear when lawmakers will return to St. Paul. What’s also unclear, especially given the partisan differences exposed once again last week, is what lawmakers will be able to accomplish once they do return.

And yet there are things we do know — or think we know — about the special session that just ended.

Everything is connected

An impasse on policing shouldn’t have prevented lawmakers from finishing the handful of other matters considered must-dos, right? After all, what does the process of selling state bonds to build public construction projects around the state have to do with policing? And why couldn’t lawmakers and Gov. Tim Walz agree on something they actually agreed on, like sharing $840 million of federal CARES Act money with local governments to help pay for the locals’ COVID-19 response?

They could, they just didn’t, because every issue became intertwined. Walz, for instance, agreed to a higher share of the COVID-19 money for local governments — and to a legislatively bargained method for distributing the money — only if he could get passage of a relatively small change to the state’s 2-year budget. That in turn became connected to a GOP-led push for some tax changes for small businesses and farmers.

Republicans opposed any additional spending because the state is in a recession; the budget is heading toward deficit; and, by the way, they weren’t being asked to be involved because of the governor’s state of emergency powers.

To make the linkages plainer, there were threats by the minority caucuses in both the House and the Senate to hold up support for the bonding package until other issues were settled. Since a 60-percent majority is needed to authorize the sale of bonds, the bonding package is one vote that requires help from the minority party, and therefore the one time the often-ignored minorities have clout. For Republicans, the issue was Walz’s use of executive powers in an emergency and policing bills.

Negotiation failures

As with last year’s budget standoff, lawmakers and the governor would break up into rival camps and draw up offers that are then presented to the other side in private meetings. Afterward, each side comes out and discusses the offer. The presenter tells how generous it is and how much movement it represents. The receiver ridicules it as inadequate and not to be taken seriously.

They then retreat to quarters until the next offer meeting. Lawmakers and governors often say they don’t want to negotiate in public, until they do. The ritual of the offer meetings and the subsequent airing of grievances can serve to build public pressure — or communicate to their constituencies that they are fighting for them.

What’s next?

There remains plenty of work to be done at the Legislature this year: police accountability; a bonding bill; money to help counties, cities and townships respond to COVID-19; tax changes; and a supplemental budget.

All of it was left on the table Saturday morning. Walz can either call a special session if and when a deal is reached on those issues. Or everyone can wait until his likely extension of the peacetime emergency, on or around July 12, at which point he’ll be forced to call the Legislature back in order to give them a chance, once again, to rescind the emergency powers extension.

But all of that is subject to negotiation. And each presents different scenarios.

An early session gives Walz some ability to bargain the timing and subject matter of the session. He can condition his summons on an agreement with both chambers and both parties and avoid having another extension steal the attention. But because the GOP knows he must bring them back into session sometime in mid-July, they can also wait for better terms.

That said, Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka repeatedly lamented that sessions called under the emergency powers law don’t provide something most humans need: a deadline. So a negotiated, one-day session might fit his needs.

House Speaker Melissa Hortman wanted the Legislature to remain in session until a policing deal — and an everything-else deal — could be accomplished. That might include recesses with no formal legislative action but still involve continuing talks. And while Hortman and Walz criticised Gazelka’s deadline as artificial, they also said it helped lawmakers to focus.

Said Hortman: “It got everybody’s butts in gear.”

The wild card is the 2020 election. All 201 seats in the Legislature are on the ballot with high stakes for state and legislative politics. If the Republicans can hold onto the Senate, they are guaranteed a voice in the 2021 session, especially decisions about redistricting. If the DFL can hold the House and win the Senate, their need to work out compromises ends.

With campaigns already in full force, whenever a session is held it will be as much about messaging as legislating.

Peter Callaghan covers state government for MinnPost, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization whose mission is to provide high-quality journalism for people who care about Minnesota. Visit the website at MinnPost.com. This commentary has been edited for length.