This article from the Star Tribune provides a great example of why it’s bad to write policy into constitutions. Essentially, Minnesota passed a “Legacy Amendment” in 2008 that dedicated a portion of the state’s sales tax revenue to projects concerning the arts and the environment. While the amendment was certainly well meaning—what self-respecting liberal doesn’t like clean water, parks and orchestras?—it has created a whole host of problems for lawmakers who are trying to pare down a gigantic budget deficit without slashing programs that provide things like healthcare for homeless people.
While we might all like to have more parks and art museums, I think we can all agree that it’s probably better to prioritize saving peoples’ lives over trail maintenance. When well-meaning citizens write spending policy into the state constitution they prevent well-meaning legislators from effectively triaging during an economic downturn. Any constitutional amendment which mandates specific levels of spending or a particular program, be it a liberal Legacy Amendment or Pawlenty’s ill-conceived budgeting amendment, should be kept off the books.
I’m generally not such a fan, but Governor Pawlenty is right about this:
Gov. Pawlenty cut $1.9 million in state ethanol producer payments. From his detailed budget proposal (emphasis mine):
This proposal reduces the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s (MDA) program and grant spending by 6.7 percent. The largest reduction is a one-time decrease in ethanol producer payments ($1.931 million), with the remainder making up reductions in grants to county fairs, livestock breeders, agricultural research and education organizations and Second Harvest Heartland. Mental health grants, farm-to-school grants, livestock investment grants and MDA’s dairy development and profitability enhancement program are also reduced.
Hear, hear. These programs deserve much more than a one-time decrease but this cut is better than nothing. Polinaut notes that this probably won’t gain Pawlenty many accolades in Iowa, but hey, if Arnie Vinick can win the Republican nomination after taking a strong stance against such a foolish policy, I’m sure Pawlenty has a fighting chance to do so as well.
I’m getting sort of sick of Tim Pawlenty’s new-found affinity for stupid gimmicks:
The state’s general fund budget would be frozen in line with revenue received during the previous budget period under a constitutional amendment proposed today by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
The amendment, if placed on next year’s ballot by legislators and approved by voters, would limit government spending and force legislators to set firmer priorities, Pawlenty said.
This is really stupid idea. For one, any sort of policy that forces the government to slash spending during an economic downturn is necessarily going to lead to some pretty perverse cyclical consequences. Further, on a more philosophical note, I’m extremely uncomfortable with putting checks in the State Constitution that are not needed to ensure a functioning democracy. What I mean by this is that Pawlenty’s proposal, while debatable on its meager merits, is a policy proposal, not a constitutional matter. It’s important to constrain the powers of the legislature when it comes to issues like freedom of speech and other fundamental rights which are necessarily to ensure a healthy democracy; it is very dangerous, and frankly a little bizarre, to limit the power of legislature when it comes to policy measures.
Policy should be debated and voted on by the state legislature, not by the voters. Let too many referendums pass and too many constitutional constraints slip into place and you’re looking at the prospect of Minnesota devolving into a Californiaesque quagmire. I think that’s something we would all like to avoid. Pawlenty’s silly constitutional amendment should fall on that point alone.
Good lord:
Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) of Minnesota, widely seen as a potential moderate savior for the party, is saying he may try interposition/nullification to block the operation of any health care reform in his state. In other words, giving the ole college try to insurrectionary doctrines that were discredited going on two hundred years ago and were last trotted out, more or less as a stunt, by the most rancid of the anti-civil rights Southern governors in the 50s and 60s.
I am a big fan of the idea that Tim Pawlenty could be the ‘great white hope’ that the GOP needs to salvage its dismal brand; however, this belief is predicated on Pawlenty’s single greatest strength: his ability to straddle the moderate/conservative divide by talking like a centrist but governing as a conservative. If Pawlenty loses this cred, he’s got nothing– it’s not hard to join the crazy club in the GOP.
Someone get this man some new, saner advisers.
A poll released last Friday showed Barack Obama with a sizable lead over Gov. Pawlenty in a hypothetical presidential matchup in Minnesota:
A new survey from Public Policy Polling of Minnesotans–those lucky souls now boasting a full contingent of two US senators–shows Obama beating Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty in a potential head-to-head presidential matchup, 51 percent to 40 percent. Obama beat John McCain in Minnesota last year by 10 points, carrying 45 counties.
I’m not at all surprised by these numbers. Obama is still very popular in Minnesota (although his numbers have softened a bit recently) and Pawlenty just made some unpopular budget cuts that are going to adversely affect a wide swath of Minnesotans. Also, it’s important to remember that Minnesota is a very blue state. We’ve voted more times in a row for a Democratic presidential candidate than any other state in the Union, gosh darn it!
Should Tim Pawlenty be concerned about these numbers? Maybe. In a general election, it sure would help Pawlenty if he could carry Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin which collectively have as many electoral votes as Florida. Still, I think Gov. Pawlenty could play well throughout the Midwest and old-Northwest (particularly in Ohio and Indiana); in fact, it’s entirely possible Minnesota might be his worst state in a hypothetical campaign, especially in light of voters’ familiarity with some of his more unpopular policies and the Gopher state’s generally left-leaning record.
I can’t figure this out either:
[Rasmussen] also checked out favorable and unfavorable opinions of these putative candidates, and here’s where the numbers get a little wacky: Romney 73/19; Palin 76/21; Huckabee 78/17; Gingrich 65/39. That’s all very predictable. But then there’s Haley Barbour at 34/37, and Tim Pawlenty at 38/33. Only a fifth of Republicans have issues with Palin, while about half of those who seem to have an idea who Haley Barbour and Tim Pawlenty are don’t like them.
…what on earth has Tim Pawlenty done to offend so many Republicans?
Ed Kilgore says this means either that the Rasmussen poll is screwy or that “the perpetual competition among Republican candidates to outperform each other in ideological posturing has evolved into a mandatory exercise.” Perhaps. These numbers certainly befuddle me and put more than a little damper on my pet theory that Tim Pawlenty is the dark horse to watch in 2012.
Still, I have to believe that Kilgore’s former reason is much more plausible than his latter. After all, I would be shocked if 71% of Republican voters could even tell a pollster which state Gov. Pawlenty is the chief executive of, let alone give their opinion of him as a potential presidential candidate. (This isn’t a slight against the Republican base; it’s simply an observation on the knowledgeability of the average voter.) Further, there really isn’t anything objectionable about Tim Pawlenty—at least from the standpoint of the average Republican—he may not be ‘shrieking about socialism’ but he’s definitely in the Republican mainstream and nothing about his personal life strikes me as even remotely objectionable.
I think it may be worth Rasmussen’s time to do a double-take on these fishy numbers.
I really don’t know what specifics Governor Pawlenty is planning on talking about at the Aspen Ideas Festival roundtable on ‘improving teach quality,’ but I sure hope one of his fellow participants calls him out on Q-Comp, the governor’s failed plan to institute a merit-pay system in Minnesotan schools.
I can speak from personal experience, my high school was a Q-Comp school, that the governor’s program was ill-conceived and extremely ineffective. Essentially, the tools that Q-Comp used to determine teacher performance were a combination of testing (which, for obvious reasons, doesn’t accurately assess a teacher) and administrative evaluations. While the testing was bad, the administrative evaluations were undoubtedly the worst part of the program because they were often times conducted by teachers (I can think of one from my district in particular) who were not only poor instructors themselves but had abrasive personalities which lent themselves to biased reviews and personal retaliations not based on job performance.
I’m sure it’s possible that my district was abnormal and simply got saddled with a few Q-Comp stooges who were exceptionally incompetent. However, I still think that teaching is very much an art, instead of a science. Experience has shown us after all that it is extremely difficult to devise any sort of metric which can accurately measure the quality of a teacher. Pawlenty’s merit pay plan was a naive venture into educational policy and, if he is indeed considering a run for president, I really hope that he’s held to account for one the worst programs from his gubernatorial administration.
Polinaut, via Washington Whispers, is reporting that Tim Pawlenty is gearing up for what everyone expected-a run for president:
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has decided against running for a third term in 2010, will spend the next two years traveling the country to see if he can build enough support to run for president in 2012, according to associates. The Republican, who is expected to play up his humble roots and past in a populist bid against President Obama, will decide in 2011 if there is enough of a base on which to build his campaign. Those close to “T-Paw” said that his focus is the presidency, not a vice presidential nomination or an effort to raise his name recognition en route to a bid in 2016. When Pawlenty made his decision to stick to just two terms, it was viewed as his opening move in the 2012 campaign. GOP officials believe that he is likely to face Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, and others in the early primaries and caucuses if he decides to run.
Scheck notes that Pawlenty is going to need to focus on his outstate fundraising, as he has never before been forced to look outside Minnesota for dollars in previous campaigns. Certainly this will be an issue for Pawlenty’s candidacy, although I would assume that Pawlenty’s stint as chairman of the National Governor’s Association left him with a few contacts he can leverage into campaign cash. Additionally, I think it’s important to remember that last sentence from Washington Whispers; Tim Pawlenty’s opponents are expected to be Romney, Palin, Huckabee and Newt Gingrich.
Honestly, this really is shaping up to be one of the weakest field of candidates in recent history on the GOP side: a washed up one-term Governor who had to reverse his position on a string of hot-button issues and who is widely distrusted by the GOP base, a bumbling Governor from a small state who embarrassed herself during a national campaign and is loathed by the general electorate, an extreme social conservative who threatens the interests of economic conservatives and who has little-to-no foreign policy experience, all in a field with a highly disgraced former-Speaker of the House. What fun!
Seriously-if this field stays static, isn’t this race Pawlenty’s to lose?
Everyone is making much ado about the fact that Sarah Palin failed to make the list of ‘who speaks for the Republican party today.’ Kevin Drum even makes a funny by saying that this “shows a disturbing amount of common sense from the loyal opposition.”
Perhaps. However, after reading Gallup’s write-up about this poll I think it’s FAR more likely that the pollster simply failed to include Governor Palin on their list of spokespeople, an oversight that led to her being overlooked by poll respondents. This theory, I believe, is supported by Gallup’s inclusion on an ‘other’ category that likely includes Palin and which scored a respectable 9%.
I might be wrong about Gallup’s methodology but hopefully we’ll still have good ol’ Sarah to kick around for a few more years.
[Additionally, I'd just like to note that the severe dearth of GOP leaders means Tim Pawlenty is only that much better placed to secure the Republican nomination in 2012. Honestly, he really is the only non-crazy name in that bunch (other than Romney, but I'm still convinced he's too fake to play with the Republican base). Given that Jindal and Huntsman look like they're going to bide their time until 2016, I'm thinking about getting into the Intrade market to buy up some Pawlenty shares.]
It seems I was unusually prescient about the obstacles in Al Franken’s way as he seeks his US Senate seat. Gov. Pawlenty announced today that he will not seek a third term as governor of Minnesota, a move which is seen by many, myself included, to signal that the Governor is transitioning to a presidential campaign in 2010. Pawlenty, who is widely perceived as a moderate to center-right governor will need to reestablish his conservative credentials (a process he has already begun, as demonstrated by his punitive budget cuts) and working with Senate Republicans to deny Democrats 60 votes in the Senate will help him demonstrate his partisan foison.
All of the above is conventional wisdom. What actually puzzles me is what exactly the GOP nomination in 2012 is worth to Tim Pawlenty. Quite a lot can change in three years, but I think it’s fair to say that President Obama will likely be a formidable foe in the general election. Especially when you consider the disorganized and demoralized state of the Republican Party, it’s difficult to see the current GOP managing to take back the White House.
I believe Pawlenty is aware of this dynamic and that is why I don’t believe he actually expects to win his party’s nomination, nor do I believe he is particularly interested in being put on the ticket as a vice-presidential pick. Rather, I believe Pawlenty will leverage the coming campaign to raise his national profile (he is still something of an unknown outside the Midwest) and position himself for the presidential race in 2016.
Tim Pawlenty is and ought to be a very attractive candidate for the Republican Party. He is Mitt Romney, sans Mormonism and general fakery. He is attractive, hails from a swing state, and has a compelling personal story (first in his family to graduate college, son of a single father and truck driver, etc.) which will make him attractive to a wide swathe of the electorate-particularly lower income Americans. Of all the names floating around in GOP circles right now, Gov. Huntsman included, I believe Pawlenty is the name Democrats should remember most.