GOP leaders 'disappointed' after morning meeting with Dayton

Posted at 11:53 AM on May 21, 2011 by Elizabeth Dunbar (4 Comments)
Filed under: MN Legislature

Gov. Mark Dayton, Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch and House Speaker Kurt Zellers wait before a joint House and Senate GOP caucus at the Capitol on Thursday. Dayton and the GOP leadership met again Saturday. (MPR Photo/Jeffrey Thompson)

GOP leaders said a morning meeting with Dayton was "disappointing," yet they say they're still optimistic a budget deal will be reached by Monday's deadline.

Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, said Republicans were especially disappointed they've received no official feedback on a K-12 funding bill the Legislature approved earlier this week. Republicans are now calling on Dayton to veto that bill quickly so they know what his problems are with the bill.

DFL House Minority Leader Paul Thissen said it should be clear why Dayton doesn't support it.

"The are significant policy differences in those bills," Thissen said. "The governor put out a seven-point plan a long time ago. None of that showed up in the Republican bills. And there are policy in those bills, like vouchers for example, which is inconsistent with where most Minnesotans are on education policy."

Dayton has said he will not allow any of the budget bills to become law until there's an agreement on the entire budget. The Legislature didn't send the bill to Dayton until yesterday, and the constitution gives him three days to decide whether to sign or veto it.

The morning meeting in Dayton's office included GOP leaders, as well as DFL Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk and Thissen.

Thissen said afterward that not much progress was made. He said Dayton offered concessions on his budget proposal on Monday, and that Democrats were waiting for Republicans to act.

"Republicans haven't moved on their position at all," he said.

Deputy Senate Majority Leader Geoff Michel, R-Edina, said Republican leaders will meet with Dayton again mid-afternoon.

"We'll work today, we'll work tomorrow and we'll keep talking with the governor," Michel said.

(MPR reporter Tom Scheck contributed to this report.)

Comments (4)

It's hard to negotiate when one side's position is unchangeable. Dayton has already offered to move half way, and the answer was a quick and flat No.

Intransigence has been a hallmark of GOP tactics for several years now. Pawlenty used total, uncompromising stubbornness a lot as a tactic, and we saw it shoot-thru the health care reform "debate" in DC the past two years.

We need leaders from the right who are at least as interested in doing good for the citizens as they are in ideological purity.

Posted by RalfW | May 21, 2011 12:29 PM

A compromise to the left is a compromise of good and evil; it is foisting upon Minnesotans a high tax/high service model that Republicans believe (and budget deficits have vindicated) just can’t be sustained, and the people hurt the most are the people government is supposed to protect, benefit and secure. We need leaders from the left to admit their failures and stop spending, stop taxing and stop taking away our freedom!

Posted by Merrilee | May 21, 2011 1:38 PM

To Merrilee:

If you are lifting content verbatim from GOP Chairman Sutton's mail to the media, please have the integrity to attribute the quote.

Posted by TorstenM | May 21, 2011 6:52 PM

Sorry Tony
The following statement came from a letter written by Tony Sutton and retrieved from the True North web site:

A compromise to the left is a compromise of good and evil; it is foisting upon Minnesotans a high tax/high service model that Republicans believe (and budget deficits have vindicated) just can’t be sustained, and the people hurt the most are the people government is supposed to protect, benefit and secure.

And in my own words we need leaders from the left to admit their failures and stop spending, stop taxing and stop taking away our freedom!
My apologies to anyone else I may not have credited...

Westover, C. (2011, May 21). True north. Retrieved from http://looktruenorth.com/limited-government/360-ever-expanding-government/16639-craig-westover.html

Posted by Merrilee | May 21, 2011 10:10 PM

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