Minn. court examines timing, breadth of gov's cuts

By BRIAN BAKST

ST. PAUL, Minn.

Minnesota Supreme Court justices quoted from the dictionary, the state constitution and law books Monday as they considered whether to leave intact $2.7 billion in budget cuts made by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Acknowledging the gravity of their pending decision, justices bent usually strict time rules to let oral arguments drag on for an extra 25 minutes. "The stakes are high," Justice Paul Anderson said at one point.

Their ruling will determine whether a current $1 billion budget problem swells dramatically and if future governors will have wide latitude to enact cuts without the consent of the Legislature.

At issue is an executive power known as unallotment, which allows Minnesota governors to reduce spending on their own during a fiscal crisis. Pawlenty created an uproar last summer when he employed the law in a way none of his predecessors ever had -- at the start of the budget period and in place of a negotiated deal.

All seven justices -- four put on the court by Pawlenty -- aggressively questioned the governor's lawyers and an attorney for people who successfully sued in a lower court to reinstate $5.3 million for a special nutrition program. A Pawlenty appeal put it before the high court.

Questions centered on when and how Pawlenty made his spending cuts.

Pawlenty announced his intention in May to unallot for the two-year budget period beginning July 1, and his finance commissioner got the ball rolling in June. The law implies the power kicks in when unanticipated drops in revenue would put the state on course for a deficit during a budget period.

"Counsel, I think you have a timing problem here," Anderson told Solicitor General Alan Gilbert.

"There's nothing in the statute that precludes the commissioner from preparing prior to the start of the biennium," Gilbert responded.

Galen Robinson, the attorney who filed the lawsuit challenging the cuts, argued to the court that the Pawlenty administration didn't demonstrate the shortfall was unforeseen and in need of an immediate fix. An economic forecast in February indicated the budget was in dire shape but hadn't changed when Pawlenty announced his cuts. Robinson said officials shouldn't be permitted to rely on vague projections of a worsening economy when making such consequential moves.

Chief Justice Eric Magnuson, who interjected frequently with questions of both sides, asked Robinson where the constitutional requirement of a balanced budget comes in.

"You think you can overdraw the checking account all the way up until to the end and then figure out how to fix it?" Magnuson asked.

Robinson didn't give ground, saying Pawlenty chose to sign a package of spending bills while rejecting the tax plan to pay for them all. The governor had the option to call lawmakers back into session but didn't.

Aside from questions about when Pawlenty acted, the court also spent considerable time trying to figure out if the unallotment law transferred too much policymaking power from the legislative branch to the executive branch. By allowing a governor to strip spending from a program, he can effectively kill a legitimately authorized program.

"If you expand the executive's authority in the guise of controlling spending to modify to the point of eliminating legislative judgments, how is that not a violation of separation of powers?" Magnuson asked Gilbert. He didn't get a direct answer.

That concern also seemed to weigh on Justice Helen Meyer. "The governor is deciding which laws to not give full effect to," she said.

The high court took the case on an expedited basis, so a decision is expected to come quickly.