Legislators React Post-Special Session

Last week's votes show Golden Valley legislators were divided on several bills.

Kevira Voegele, Patch Staff

Posted Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 5:35 pm CT|Updated Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 7:43 pm CT

State parks are open, poker and racing enthusiasts can visit Canterbury Park and new Minnesota residents can apply for driver's licenses. It is almost a week since a special session put the state back to work.

The votes from that special session show Golden Valley's four legislators were torn on the issues before them.

"I regret most legislators were not given sufficient time to closely review the details of the bills and that no time was allowed for public comment before votes were taken," Sen. Ann Rest (District 45) said in a statement on Friday. "Legislators relied on summary information and spreadsheets provided by the budget negotiators."

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Rest voted for seven of the 12 special session bills.

"I opposed the one-time money financing proposals (K-12 finance and the tax bill) but voted for some of the other budget bills where I felt the cuts were manageable, given the state of our economy," Rest said.

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Sen. Ron Latz (District 44) voted for four of the 12 bills.

“I supported the public safety and legacy bills, as well as the capital investment (bonding) bill, which will fund the new physics building and other facilities improvements at the University of Minnesota, and the creation of the railroad switching yards in McLeod County, which gets rid of the use of sidings for switching which have taken place in cities like Hopkins and Minnetonka,” Latz said. He also voted for the pension bill.

Rep. Ryan Winkler (District 44B) and Rep. Lyndon Carlson (District 45B) voted for the bonding and pensions bills only.

"The budget cuts are painful, but perhaps the worst elements of the budget are the added borrowing and debt," Winkler said in a statement. "The budget will leave another $2 billion deficit in the next budget cycle. Added to that is the school shift and tobacco bonds, which brings the total projected deficit for the next budget back up to $5 billion."

Latz and Winkler expressed the frustration many DFLers had with the results of the special session votes.

“There were better ways to do this fiscally,” Latz said. “The reduction is two-thirds cuts and one-third borrowing and to me this is like paying your bills with a very high-interest credit card.”

"Leaving our state’s finances in tatters undermines our ability to confront the big challenges ahead of us," Winkler said. "… Until we put our state’s finances on solid ground, we cannot seriously address these challenges and we risk a slow decline in our state’s prosperity and quality-of-life."