Unfinished Business At The State Capitol

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The Minnesota Legislature has reconvened for its 2010 session, faced with the same problems they left behind last year:  a monstrous budget deficit--$1.2 billion--and a lame-duck governor who thinks he can "unallot" his way out of red ink.

There's something else this year.  It seems that half the legislators, such as House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelleher (a Democrat) and Rep. Marty Seifert (a Republican),want to run for Governor Tim Pawlenty's job, and the distraction factor is high.  Pawlenty is currently running a pseudo-campaign for President in 2012.  And at least one--assistant Senate majority leader Tarryl Clark, a Democrat--wants to end the reign of weirdness that is Third District Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a Republican.

In the statewide caucuses that were held Tuesday night, those who bothered to show up (no Obama fever this year) chose Seifert in the GOP straw poll, and Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak for the Democrats.  Former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton, considered the front-runner in terms of finances (he's reportedly funding his own campaign), chose to sit this one out and wait for the primaries.

Meanwhile, back at their day jobs . . . Among the early items on the Legislature's to-do list (once they slay the budget dragon) is a focus on getting people back to work, a bill to fund new building projects, and an effort to restore cutbacks in health care for the poor.

And there's that new Vikings stadium.  Governor Pawlenty made the suggestion that, now that Minnesota has joined the Mega Millions lottery game, some of that money should go toward funding the stadium.  But legislators are still awfully ambivalent toward giving the football franchise the money to build their new playground, money they should be spending themselves.

Of course, all of this is subject to the approval of Governor Pawlenty, for whom the word "compromise" is not in his vocabulary.  It's up to him if he wants to see Minnesota succeed or fail based on what he does with his trusty veto pen before he leaves office.  And whichever one of those legislators manages to stand up to Pawlenty, then that person's chances of succeeding him in the Governor's Mansion improves greatly come November.