In a stinging coda to a divisive legislative session, DFL Gov. Mark Dayton on Monday vetoed a GOP-led package of business property tax breaks that were a top priority for many of the state's corporate leaders.
The veto came hours after a session-ending triumph for Dayton and a bipartisan group of legislators, when Dayton made a rare, ceremonial show in the Capitol rotunda of officially signing the bill to create a new $975 million home for the Minnesota Vikings.
A billion for the Vikings, bupkes for other businesses. Not surprisingly, the reaction wasn't happy:
"The governor showed a great amount of flexibility on his top priority, the stadium, and little or no flexibility on issues related to small-business job creation," said David Olson, president of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.And the Republicans, who basically spent the last week trying to get something done as Helga Braid Nation sucked all the oxygen out of the Capitol Dome, were less than pleased:
GOP legislators say they now realize they should have insisted on the stadium and tax bills as a package deal to ensure that both became law. Rep. Greg Davids, chairman of the House Taxes Committee, accused Dayton of trading stadium votes from DFLers in return for vetoing the tax bill, robbing Republicans of a chief accomplishment.
"Dayton got everything he wanted," said Davids, R-Preston. "It was a finely crafted tax bill that he torched for political purposes."
Senate Taxes Committee Chairwoman Julianne Ortman said the bill offered a lot of relief for business for only a tiny burden on the budget. "This was a terribly unfortunate, very partisan veto and he did it at the expanse of all the cities and businesses of Minnesota," said Ortman, R-Chanhassen.
So let's sum this up -- Dayton rams through the Vaseline Dome and then shows every other business in Minnesota his butt. And now the Republicans get to be on the business end of a few million dollars worth of Alida Messinger ads that they won't be able to counter.
After the cynical, scurrilous campaign that Dayton used to gain the governor's chair, it should have been evident to everyone on the Republican side that they were dealing with a guy who does not act in good faith. I hope the momentary praise was worth it for the Julie Rosens, John Kriesels and Morrie Lannings of the world.
10 comments:
The double standards of politics never surprise me, but they are nevertheless frustrating:
When a Republican governor consistently vetoes a DFL legislature's bills, the governor is being intransigent.
When a DFL governor consistently vetoes a GOP legislature's bills, the legislature is a "do-nothing" body.
Glad we could clear that up.
Dayton should receive no republican cooperation for the remainder of what hopefully be his first and only term.
You can't honestly believe that packaging the business tax cuts and the stadium would have been anything other than Kevorkian-level suicidal. That's got to be the most reckless and stupidest strategy I've ever heard.
Dayton simply vetoes the bill, and/or the DFL caucus votes it down en masse, and the GOP gets 100% of the blame for losing the Vikings to L.A. The DFL then roars back in November, driven by the "Helga braid wearers" and taxes and spends MN clean to death.
Why on earth some are so stubbornly convinced the Vikings stadium was a good battleground for a long-overdue shrinking of gov't in MN when in fact it was an awful one that should never have been fought upon at all (mock the "Helga braid wearers" if you must, but understand and accept the political reality they represent), I'll never understand.
If the MN GOP really thinks this, they have a bunch of myopic General Custers running the place; had that extremely ill-thought and ill-advised strategy actually been employed, the Vikings stadium would've been their Little BigHorn and November 2012 would have been their Last Stand. At least this way, only Speaker Zellers looked completely ridiculous and buffoon-ish (even though he's not).
This is not blitzkrieg, this is trench warfare. It's long-term and success is measured by small increments. And just as sending troops charging out of the trench most often gets them mowed down to no gain, so too would have tying the stadium to tax cuts gotten all those freshmen GOP Tea Party types cut down at the polls in November.
And while we can respect the guts of those who stood on principle, we should not respect the brains of those so disconnected from strategic reality would've almost gleefully chosen a hopeless battle they couldn't possibly win and were doomed to lose the moment in which it was engaged and from which they could no longer quickly and cleanly withdraw.
You can't honestly believe that packaging the business tax cuts and the stadium would have been anything other than Kevorkian-level suicidal. That's got to be the most reckless and stupidest strategy I've ever heard.
Dayton simply vetoes the bill, and/or the DFL caucus votes it down en masse, and the GOP gets 100% of the blame for losing the Vikings to L.A. The DFL then roars back in November, driven by the "Helga braid wearers" and taxes and spends MN clean to death.
Not what I said. You still keep the bills separate, but you bring the tax bill forward first. Make Dayton's intransigence the issue and point out that he's more interested in spending money on a stadium than he is in helping out small businesses throughout the state. And keep making the statement all the way through until the Helga Braiders understand that Dayton is playing chicken with their stadium.
The pressure would have been on Dayton and the DFL under those circumstances.
This is not blitzkrieg, this is trench warfare. It's long-term and success is measured by small increments. And just as sending troops charging out of the trench most often gets them mowed down to no gain, so too would have tying the stadium to tax cuts gotten all those freshmen GOP Tea Party types cut down at the polls in November.
Guess what? The DFL is going to try to mow them down anyway. No Republicans will get credit for "saving the Vikings" anyway, so why not try to get something that will actually help the state?
republicans accepted a promise they knew would not be delivered.
now they get to 'whine' to their base, assuring further support from that base.
and the wheel goes round and round...
so, where is the news?
With all due respect, Mr. D, I don't see any way to do the stadium and tax cuts at the same time without it looking like the GOP was the one "playing chicken with the stadium."
Dayton has the bully pulpit that comes with the Governorship, the media totally on his side, and the GOP would have been portrayed as infantile and spiteful for killing the stadium in response to Dayton's vetoing of tax cuts. There would be no way to keep the political damage symmetrical. (Just look at the public image of Zellers vs. Dayton now, if you don't believe me. Then imagine every GOP member getting the Zellers treatment, and you'll start getting the picture.)
Given that the stadium was always going to be a lose-lose situation (GOP only getting blamed for losing the Vikings, Dayton only credited for saving them, never mind the truth) the smart strategy would have been to avoid it entirely by passing it first thing this session and getting it out of the way ASAP. THEN the tax cuts vs. bonding bill battle could have been fully joined, at maximum volume and intensity. The war for the soul of MN could then begin in earnest.
Instead, you have the GOP not only not avoiding the Vikings stadium, but tying all its fortunes to it, stupidly using it as a sign of "standing on principle," all in the hopes that Dayton would be dragged down with them in a form of mutually assured destruction. Never mind that it could NEVER turn out that way. (And those who think it could are dangerously disconnected from reality, IMHO.)
Dayton, the DFL and the media wouldn't even have had to disingenuously pin the blame, as the GOP members would have embraced it on their own, proudly wearing the loss of the Vikings as a badge of honor (*facepalm*)
If you're going to ask lots of good GOP members to sacrifice their jobs, the least you could do is get something very substantial for it, like massive tax and spending cuts. Stopping a Vikings stadium, in the context of how huge the MN state budget is, is not substantial – certainly not enough to justify such a loss and such a scorched-earth strategy.
Sometimes you have to know what to avoid in order to survive to fight harder another day, Mr. D. The Vikings stadium was always something to avoid – not to embrace and certainly not to use when there was no way to achieve the desired outcome.
Occasionally, avoiding disaster is all the better you can do. In this case, all the GOP can do is avoid the disaster of losing in November and wait until 2014. The first step toward that is avoiding the disaster of being the ones held responsible for having lost the Vikings in an election year.
Occasionally, avoiding disaster is all the better you can do. In this case, all the GOP can do is avoid the disaster of losing in November and wait until 2014. The first step toward that is avoiding the disaster of being the ones held responsible for having lost the Vikings in an election year.
I disagree with your premise 100%, because Dayton wouldn't have been willing to let the Vikings leave on his watch. The worst-case scenario was more drama and a special session, in which the stadium would have passed anyway. Dayton had as much to lose as the Republicans.
so, where is the news?
I'm not arguing it's "news," Gino. Defeatist Republicans are never news.
I disagree with your premise 100%, because Dayton wouldn't have been willing to let the Vikings leave on his watch. The worst-case scenario was more drama and a special session, in which the stadium would have passed anyway. Dayton had as much to lose as the Republicans.
You might be right, but I can certainly see Dayton vetoing a bill that contained both the stadium and the full tax cuts. (Which would have had to have been passed on a party-line basis by the GOP members, no doubt, despite conservative objections to the stadium. And would the GOP's left edge hold on or sell out?)
Lord knows the class-warring DFL base would've demanded the veto and even though he's not up until 2014 Dayton would've been very hesitant to cross them. And the DFL members up this year certainly wouldn't want their base angered that way.
I think the most likely outcome of your strategy is that no special session would have happened, neither tax cuts nor stadium pass, and the intense finger-pointing blame-game for the consequences would go all the way to Election Day, where the GOP is up, Dayton is not, and the DFL has plausible deniability since the GOP passed the vetoed combo bill on their own. I, for one, don't like the looks of the GOP's chances with that scenario. (Dayton not being up necessarily slants the playing field; certainly the DFL thinks so, given their tactics in the gov't shutdown last year and letting Dayton run with the stadium all but alone this year.)
And in the meantime, the NFL would have moved the Vikings to Los Angeles for 2013, since MN would have forfeited control of the situation. Add that on top of it, and the electoral scenario looks bleak indeed.
I guess it all comes down to two things: whether Dayton and the DFL could be made to suffer more of the mutually assured destruction in November than the GOP (when Dayton's not on the ballot), and whether you value the Vikings as a MN asset (thus not worth the risk of losing) or purely as political pawn/weapon to be used against the opponent (in which case losing the Vikings is irrelevant).
I'm quite skeptical of the former and wouldn't risk the franchise in the latter; you're confident in the former and are content to risk the franchise in the latter.
We'll never know how either of our unused strategies would have turned out; heck, maybe neither would have worked. But on the surface, I just have a hard time seeing how the game of high-stakes chicken you propose could turn out well for the GOP...and if the only way it could is to sacrifice the Vikings in the process, I'm not sure I could pay that price either.
You might be right, but I can certainly see Dayton vetoing a bill that contained both the stadium and the full tax cuts. (Which would have had to have been passed on a party-line basis by the GOP members, no doubt, despite conservative objections to the stadium. And would the GOP's left edge hold on or sell out?)
You keep missing what I'm saying. You keep the bills separate, but hold the vote on the tax cuts FIRST. And you make it clear to Dayton and the DFL that the Vikings bill only comes to the floor after Dayton signs the first bill.
Remember, the Republicans controlled the calendar. And there would have been a special session, because Dayton is the one who can call it. And if the alternative was losing the Vikings, he wouldn't have had the guts to keep the lege out until November. The Helga Braiders would have turned on him if there was any real danger of losing the team and he was holding the lege out of session. And you make Dayton explain why he refuses to cut taxes and is willing to prevent the Vikings from getting a vote because of his refusal to consider tax cuts. He would not have had a good answer.
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