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Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislators plodded Thursday through another day of closed-door negotiations, insisting they were making progress without producing much evidence of an imminent deal on property tax relief, a budget fix and other issues that divide them.
House Minority Leader Marty Seifert suggested the last-minute pressure had yet to set in. Lawmakers famous for pulling things together in the final hours have a few days left to go.
“We’re not even at yellow-alert status,” Seifert said. “It’s only Thursday.”
Away from the main event, some matters were coming to a head: Pawlenty vetoed a bill that would have raised the state minimum wage twice over the next 14 months, the House snubbed a proposal for a stricter seat belt law and a Senate committee dealt a hard blow to a plan to toughen car emission standards.
Pawlenty had been warning he would reject the wage hike bill on a few grounds, and he named them again in his veto message. The bill sought to raise the lowest hourly wage for workers at large companies to $7.75 by July 2009. Smaller employers would have had to pay $6.75 after the two-step increase took full effect.
“The size of this wage mandate and the lack of an appropriate tip credit would detrimentally harm employers in Minnesota struggling to maintain jobs within an economic slowdown,” the GOP governor wrote.
Sponsor Sen. Ellen Anderson said the veto is a blow to people struggling to make ends meet. She said it would have raised the yearly income of a full-time minimum wage worker from about $13,000 to about $16,000.
“There is something wrong with a state where our leader says that’s too much money for people who get up and go to work every day,” said Anderson, DFL-St. Paul.
Meanwhile, for the second time in a week the House shoved aside a plan giving police power to stop motorists simply for failing to buckle up.
The effort to attach the primary seat belt measure to another transportation bill was deemed out of order on a 78-55 vote.
Under current law, unbuckled drivers and passengers can be ticketed for not wearing a belt. But police need to have a different reason for making the traffic stop.
The Senate has repeatedly passed the seat belt crackdown, but it has always gotten hung up in the House.
Opponents say seat belt use should remain a personal choice and others argue police could use it as a basis for racial profiling.
Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, said he was already looking to next year.
Likewise, Sen. John Marty and Rep. Melissa Hortman acknowledged their push to adopt California-style tailpipe emissions rules was running on fumes after a Senate committee voted 10-7 to kill the bill.
“The auto lobby has too much clout still. We are going to prevail, it just might take another year,” said Marty, DFL-Roseville.
The bill would have required that new cars and light trucks sold in the state emit 30 percent fewer greenhouse gases by the year 2016. More than a dozen states have adopted the standard, but so far, the federal government has blocked its implementation.
In Minnesota, the auto dealers association fought the plan. Industry representative Scott Lambert declared victory but wasn’t ready to let down his guard. “Proponents of this bill have been relentless, so we’ll keep on watch,” he said.
Nothing is truly dead at the Capitol until the final gavel falls. Still, Hortman downplayed chances for reviving the bill even though it enjoys the support of House and Senate leaders.
“They have bigger fish to fry,” Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said. “I suspect we will be working on it in 2009.”
Those bigger fish included devising a state-imposed limit on the rise of local property taxes.
Pawlenty wants to prevent local governments from raising property taxes higher than a few percentage points each year; Democrats say it should be more flexible so police, fire and other essential services aren’t harmed.
Democratic leaders were also holding out for extra aid checks to local governments and beefed-up assistance programs to help homeowners whose property tax bills have climbed dramatically.
On Thursday evening, Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller and his House counterpart, Tony Sertich, said the tradeoff came down to property tax limits vs. a health care overhaul Pawlenty vetoed Tuesday. Democrats are pushing to revive that bill. The main disagreement revolves around whether to expand the MinnesotaCare health program for the working poor, which they want and the governor opposes.
“If we could figure out a way to get some health care reform and health care coverage, I think we could get there,” said Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis.
Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said any deal would have to include the property tax cap.
Finding money to pay for a mix of property tax relief has been tough, especially with the state facing a $935 million budget shortfall that lawmakers are simultaneously trying to address.
Seifert, R-Marshall, questioned how the state could afford to do it all.
“We’re trying to scrape up pennies under the couch,” Seifert said.
If the budget isn’t settled by Monday’s adjournment deadline, Pawlenty can call the Legislature into special session or he can cut spending on his own after draining state reserves.
