"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
Hy-Order Intelligence On
Gopher-state GridlockPosted 6:56 p.m., July 2, 2004
|
On June 30, I had the pleasure of conducting a 90-minute sit-down interview with Hy Berman, the recently retired University of Minnesota history professor and the go-to expert on Minnesota political history. As the conversation recapped below demonstrates, Hy isn't only concerned with history. He keeps a sharp eye on current events.
As it happened, on my drive over to his Minneapolis home, the radio broke news that Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty was backing away from scheduling a special legislative session. Only a few weeks ago, Pawlenty suggested he could forge a compromise agreement and schedule a special session to deal with a key bonding bill, keeping divisive issues like gay marriage out of the mix.
On Wednesday, the guv backtracked, insisting he has no authority to forbid Christian-right legislators from introducing a gay marriage ban--a move that would certainly torpedo the special session and prevent the state from getting needed projects funding.
Of course, what Pawlenty is really doing is hiding under cover of plausible deniability and signaling to his far-right fellows in the GOP that he has no intention of keeping ideology out of the people's business. Why would he? He would be bucking right-wing kindred spirits.
This all follows on the heels of a do-nothing legislative session in which the only items of consequence tackled were the passage of a .08 blood alcohol limit for drivers--Minnesota is now that last state in the union with .10 still on the books--and the DFL's ouster of Pawlenty's ideologically driven state Education Commissioner, Cheri Pierson Yecke.
But that's all context. Back to Hy.
I thought it would be good to check in with the professor to rate, from a historical perspective, the dead-enders now running the state government.
So what follows is a Q&A, based on part of our chat. I'm not going to say I agree with the professor at every stop of this conversation, but I will testify that his ideas are fascinating.
'All The Authority in the World'
Kevblog: Professor Berman, you might have some context for this. The governor says he has no authority to hold a special session while putting the reins on his party not to talk about gay marriage, in order to get a bonding bill passed. What about that?
Berman: He has all the authority in the world. He has the power to do it very simply by calling the special session and saying that the agenda of the special session will not include [gay marriage].K: He says he hasn't got that power.
B: He does. Look, to be sure, the setting of the agenda of a special session is not the governor's prerogative, in that sense, he's right. He can call a special session, but setting the agenda is the majority leadership's prerogative.K: But he's responsible for locking in the agreements, right?
B: And of course, one of the conditions of calling that special session is that there has to be an agreement as to what will be discussed. Now, if in fact, the Republican mainstream is agreeing that there should be a special session in which loose ends are tied up and divisive issues would not be raised, well then of course, there would be a special session. But apparently the House leadership refuses to accept that. And Pawlenty is not going to challenge the House leadership, of which he was a part at one time.K: And apparently at some level he still thinks he is?
B: Well, he's acting like it.K: Is there any parallel to this moment that we are in now, historically?There will not be a special session. Not until there is an acceptance of the principal, that this, which is essentially an extraneous matter that has no place in the state legislative agenda, can't come up.
The political reality right now is that the governor refuses to challenge the House leadership, of which he was once a part, even if it means that by not challenging them, that there is not going to be a special session. And all of the kind of loose ends that existed and continue to exist, are going to continue to have negative effects on governance, tax structure, particularly in cities but elsewhere as well.
B:On the ability of the governor and the Legislature to agree on an agenda for a special session?K: No, to go farther. Is there a parallel to a state government's utter failure to accomplish any major tasks of significance for the whole state during a legislative session? They got nothing, essentially, done.
B:Well, there have been sessions in the past where they didn't get very much done.(Pause) But, no, I can't think of any in which there was a complete logjam in which everything was held up.
Paltry Achievements
K:To be fair, we should note that a few things did get done.
B: Sure, some things were passed, like .08 (blood alcohol limits for drivers). And then of course if they didn't pass that it would have meant millions and millions of dollars of [lost] federal funds, so they had to do that. But that was passed and the education standards, kind of, were passed--though not the kind that the education commissioner would have wanted to see.K: And the education commissioner ...
B: She was dumped, too. So there were some things that were done, but fundamentally the main thing that happens in this off-year session is bonding, and that was not done.K: Were the Democrats simply handcuffed? Was there absolutely nothing they could do get more accomplished? I know that they didn't have the House majority, I know that they didn't have the governorship. ...This isn't the first time the university was given the short point of the stick, but I've never in the years that I've worked at the university ever--ever--seen a budget where the university's actual budget was actually cut.
Yeah, I've seen years where it didn't get the increases, or where the increases were auspicious. Not this year, but the last legislative session, the university got a $185 million per year in the two years in the biennium cut in their existing budget. Which is disastrous.
B: Well, first of all, the Democrats in the state Senate had a narrow majority.
K: Right....
B: They were handicapped by that to begin with. They didn't have the kind of maneuver room that one would have with a larger majority. The Republican House was a large majority, so they were really in the dominant position. The best that the Democrats could do in this session was to avoid what they had failed to do in the first year of the biennial session. In the first year [under then Senate Majority Leader John Hottinger, D-Mankato,] and they were skunked in every way.So in the second year, they determined they weren't going to. They were going to hold fast to what they believed has to be done. And they've done so, and of course the result was a stalemate.
Could it have been different? Yes. [Current Senate Majority Leader] Dean Johnson [D-Willmar] could have done what Hottinger did the year before and cooperated. And the end result would be that the Senate majority, as small as it is, would have been steamrollered by the governor and the House. So that was the practical kind of situation they faced. They weren't going to be steamrollered as they were in the first year of the biennial session.
Bear in mind, I haven't talked to any of the people involved.
K: I understand. But this does beg the question of this idea of whose business are they performing? It all sounds like this is about what works for the parties.
B: Well, the Democratic leadership believes that what they want to accomplish will, in the final analysis, be best for the citizens of Minnesota.The Republican Party leadership seems to think the same thing. The Republican leadership seems to think that more important than bonding, is a constitutional amendment to stop men from marrying men and women from marrying women. Obviously, for some people, that's very important. But I think to the Democratic leadership, what's more important is getting a more equitable tax system, getting a bonding bill that would serve the needs of Minnesotans, and not diverting attention to what they believe are extraneous matters.
The Invisible Center
K: Isn't that also where the political center is in the state?
B: The question is, where is the center? I haven't seen the center? I don't know where the center is.K: When Jesse Ventura was running I heard it was in Anoka (laughing).
B: I really don't know where the center is. I'm looking for the center, and I can't find it. Not in the legislative delegation.K: What are you are looking for and not seeing? What are the elements of the missing center?
B: What I'm looking for and not seeing are what I saw in Minnesota governance in the '60s and the '70s, and even into the '80s, which is a sense of civic commitment that existed in the leadership of both parties, that looked for some form of compromise on positions--which were not ideologically bound positions.K: Now you're describing Mary Kiscaden, and we saw what happened to her...
B: Could be, yes. But that's what I consider to be the center. When Elmer Anderson, the Republican, was regent of the University, he turned to Wendell Anderson, a DFL governor, and said the university requires this, this and that, Wendell Anderson would say, 'I'll put it in my budget.' Then when Elmer Anderson went to the slate of leaders in the Republican Party, he said, 'We've got to back this'; and when Wendell Anderson went to ... the Democratic leaders in the Legislature ... he said, 'We've got to back this'; they did. And it passed.K: A triumph of moderation, so to speak...The Minnesota Miracle, with the taxing bill on education, which was passed in the early 1970s, that was when what I call the center prevailed.
B: Well, in fact there weren't ideological positions that were set in stone that were so hardened that you couldn't move from them, either to the left or to the right.K: When you said you don't know where the center is, you were talking about the legislative center. I began meaning to refer to the center of the electorate.
B: Oh, the electorate. I don't think we know where the center is in the electorate. Because I think the center is that group that stays home and doesn't care what's going on.K: Well, that's not unlike what Dean Barkley tells me. He says he's tried to organize the center for a decade without any meaningful result.
B: Um-hmm. That's where the center is. If there is any center. The center is most people who are disaffected by the political scene, or those who never were attracted to the political scene. It doesn't have to be someone who went to a precinct caucus and said this is not for me. They don't have to bother with that. So I still don't where the center is, and I don't know what their position is.
The Michael Moore Effect
B: The center fluctuates, too. After 9/11, and in the build-up to the Iraq War, I thought the center was solidly behind Bush and the attack on Iraq. Now I think the center is obviously opposed. So much opposed that I think the center actually is saying let's bring the troops home and who cares what the hell happens there. I think that's very radical. But I think that's where the center is now.K: That tells me that there are more than liberals watching Michael Moore's movie now?
B: Obviously. Take a look at the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that was announced today. An overwhelming majority think the war was terrible and that we shouldn't have gotten into it and we should get out of it as fast as we can. That's the center. And that's more than 50 percent that are saying that now.K: It's got to be terrifically worrying to the Bush camp?Now, Michael Moore is not in the center, obviously, but I think that some of the sentiment that he reflects in that or represents in that reflects what is the center's position.
The fact of the matter is that a propagandistic film can take in $23 million in its first weekend, that's resonating with something more than just the left wing.
B: Well, if I were in the Bush camp, I would worry, yeah. I'd be worried about all these figures I've seen. The disapproval rating is higher than the approval rating.
-- Kevin Featherly
