Minnesota Leaders Report Progress Toward Ending Shutdown

[steven johnson]

Source: Reuters

By REUTERS
Published: July 17, 2011 at 8:27 PM ET

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Minnesota's political leaders on Sunday touted "considerable progress" in negotiating details of a state budget accord but did not say when a special legislative session might be held to end a 17-day government shutdown.

Democratic Governor Mark Dayton, Republican House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Republican Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch said talks on bills to implement their tentative budget deal were moving "in a positive direction."

State commissioners, legislative committee leaders and staff have engaged in three days of marathon talks to craft nine spending bills that will lay out precise terms of the broad agreement the governor reached with Zellers and Koch.

The debate in Minnesota has mirrored those in the nation's capital over whether or how to raise the debt ceiling and in other states with politically divided executive and legislative branches. Still, Minnesota was the only state to shut down.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2011/07/17/us/politics/politics-us-minnesota-shutdown.html?_r=1&ref=politics

[kickysnana]

1. FYI My DFL Senator wrote me a reply yesterday and does not support the deal

because it solved nothing, just postponed the inevitable and actually made the problems much bigger and will still have to be dealt with next year. We can hope that the DFL will regain the Legislature but that is a crap shoot.

[Elmore Furth]

2. Day 18 of the shutdown and the details to be worked out

It is nice to know that the Republican cult of 'fiscal responsibity' is still trying to find scapegoats.

Now in its 18th day, Minnesota’s state government shutdown continues as Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton has yet to formalize his announced deal with GOP legislative and a special session planned for Monday is likely to be delayed.

Dayton and the Republican leaders released a joint statement Sunday declaring “considerable progress has been made” but Minnesota news outlets reported passing a compromise budget will not be easy.

But the Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported state GOP legislative leaders are “struggling to string together the necessary votes” and that state house Democrats are pledging to vote against the budget en masse because they have been left out of negotiations.

Dayton last week said he planned to call a special session on the budget for Monday. That schedule now appears to be pushed back by at least a day.


Minn. shutdown drags on

[steven johnson]

3. Chance for quick budget deal fades

It appears the GOP has it's head up it's ass.

Four days after the announcement of a budget deal, fresh signs emerged Sunday that the agreement is not coming together as first hoped and that Republican legislative leaders are struggling to string together the necessary votes.

Democratic legislators said GOP leaders have frozen them out of budget talks, so they have no plans to put up any votes for the final budget deal. That means Republicans, who hold small majorities in both bodies, must come through with nearly all of their votes to pass a budget.

Questions remained about whether rank-and-file Republicans would support the final agreement, which spends more than many wanted, relies heavily on borrowing and doesn't include a GOP menu of hard-fought social policies such as abortion restrictions and a measure to require voters to show photo ID.

Chance for quick budget deal fades