Negotiating 101: Don’t Go In Outnumbered
So Governor Pawlenty met with DFL leaders for bacon and pancakes yesterday to discuss the looming fiscal disorder of the state.
During their first meeting in six months, Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty and DFL legislative leaders agreed to cooperate on steps to create jobs, restore health care benefits to some poor Minnesotans and start fixing the state’s long-term budget problems.
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House Majority Leader Tony Sertich, of Chisholm, and Senate Assistant Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, of St. Cloud, also attended the meeting.
Something in the story, or rather not in it, alarmed me that maybe nothing has changed. You see, it really bothers me that Republicans weren’t part of the final hour negotiations last session to try to solve the budget deficit Legislatively. Now, I know Republicans are in skeleton minorities in both Houses and can’t even sustain a veto in the Senate, but if we want to come up with a sustainable fiscal future for Minnesota, why are Republicans legislators not part of the plan? And I also know Pawlenty is a Republican, but when Legislative Republicans are cut out of the process, so are their ideas and all they can do is vote no. (And oh yes, the media is right there to catch it)
That also means that citizens and taxpayers of Minnesota who are not represented by Democrats, don’t have any input in the debate. I’m sorry, but I think something needs to be done about the way Pawlenty does this. He’s the top dog, he should require that GOP leaders Rep. Zellers and Sen. Senjem are at these meetings.
I sent emails to both yesterday and asked them if they were invited to the breakfast powwow. It turns out, despite the Republican legislators being in communication with Pawlenty over the last few months, they were not invited to this leadership breakfast, and may have even learned of it from watching the news with the rest of us commoners.
The best way to put aside the partisan rancor in Minnesota Legislative politics would be to make sure all sides get a voice in the matters of the state. This is proof of a couple things in my opinion:
1) Democrats don’t even want to consider Republican points of view. They think Minnesota is on the Progressive tax and spend highway.
2) Pawlenty is terrible at …. let me just say that his negotiating skills leave a lot to be desired and his sense of team work seems to be lacking. Oh I know he always seems to come out smelling like a rose and with something to hang his hat on, but he is not the only Republican in this state and some of us believe he has left us all out to dry a time or few in the past. It is a trust factor for us.
Advice to Pawlenty: Please make sure that the next time you invite Legislative leaders over to discuss the future of the state, you have them *ALL* come on the same day – at the same time – in the same room – so that you can all get a chance to throw in ideas and come out on the same page.
I’m sorry, but is Pawlenty negotiating with both Democrats and Republicans? I guess the Republicans will be meeting with the Governor today. Of course no media will be there, much like most of the intra party meetings. Nope, the news cycle and headlines of yesterday’s meetings are set in stone. Pawlenty met with DFLers to discuss the goals for the next session.
Why wouldn’t you want to have all sides there and in public view? We know what happens when Democrats get to go behind closed doors and do their work.
If you do have these types of meetings in the future, please make sure that you include all sides so it doesn’t appear that Legislative Republicans are awol. There is an election coming up, and if the news (which of course all outlets will gleefully run with) is simply about the DFL ideas and proposals, and no word of our Republican Legislators, well, you’ll be glad you decided not to seek another term as goal keeper.
(AAA’s note: I am really trying to be fair in this and trying not to nitpick.
Republicans in this state have a long record of bad negotiating. For years we have gone into budget show downs with Democrats. They come in with their cloud 9 dream budgets, we go in with what we feel is a fair compromise. We came out of them with double digit spending increases and the unsustainable spending balloon that has popped and still deflating.
I understand that Republicans are virtually irrelevant when it comes to passing bills right now, but our ideas are not. In fact, our ideas are what are desperately needed to help the fiscal and economic health of the state. And it is just rubbing salt in old wounds when we see that Pawlenty is taking on the DFL all alone and the framework of the next 2 sessions are being set up with out half of the leadership.
Especially when it comes to crafting the goals and agenda for the bonding session with attention and focus on the next budget session, after the election, which doesn’t mean that Democrats will use the bonding session as a campaign vehicle and try to knock out those last few Republican Reps they need to own the Legislature and make winning your seat a lower priority. Oh and don’t forget how there’s a whole lot of smearing sand dirty tricks going on in the GOP race to replace you, you know like lying about and spreading nasty rumors about the other GOP Legislators which appears to be coming right out of the GOP caucus and staff ranks. Oh sorry, I got sidetracked by the mudslinging….
Can you imagine if we (Democrats and Republican Legislators) started the session out with a shared plan, rather then the way we all know it is going to go, where the DFL has schemed up their tax and spend-a-palooza on their own and will call it a victory if just 49% of it passes? But of course they will hold the other 51% over the heads of Republicans and make sure voters know that if they just had bigger margins, or the Governor’s office, they could turn Minnesota into a liberal utopia.
But then again, this rant is not going to sit well with the people who think only they can operate in political environments.
AAA smear campaign begins in 3 …… 2 …… 1 ……)
I’m surprised Pawlenty didn’t have the Republican leadership more involved. You’d think he would want to at least make them seem relevant instead of marginalizing them…
For one thing, you shouldn’t assume that Pawlenty is leaving Republican leadership out just because they aren’t part of this grandstanding “negotiation.” Pawlenty has taken the Republican leadership in the house for granted in the past, no doubt about it. For a guy who was a legislator, he doesn’t seem to have a lot of respect for them. On the other hand, he does know a thing or two now about the dynamics of these negotiations. And really, with the sides so far apart these days there’s really nothing to negotiate. You’re going to get another stalemate like last time.
I don’t know what new rabbit he’s going to be able to pull out of his hat this time, like unallotment. My guess is that he will play good cop to the house’s bad cop (or maybe the reverse will happen, since he has to balance the budget and the override six are gone). I think they will coordinate some strategy though. Whether they will be successful will depend on whether the democrats override to raise taxes in an election year. It would seem like political suicide but they are so extreme now they might just do it. (They’ll propose it again, but like last time, I don’t think they’ll have the balls to actually do it via override). Margaret has already said she would raise taxes as governor, lets see if she can whip up the enthusiasm on her side for a tax increase before the election to give her threat some credibility. Republicans should be saying “bring it.” These are terms we can compete on, this is in our wheelhouse.
AAA, you are correct, all the way around. I can only add that Pawlenty and Republicans in general still have not learned how to negotiate with Democrats. Democrats are going to go into negotiaton with the most left-liberal, loony left position they can sneak through, and then adamantly insist on exactly that and no less. Republicans go in with a sensible and workable proposal with all the reasonable compromises built in, and then start compromising some more. Imagine the difference if Republicans went into the final bonding bill negotiation (having been left out, as usual) saying, in essence, “we don’t think there should be ANY bonding this year”? What would the eventual compromise look like? Better, I suspect.
Meh. They may not be good at negotiating but there is nothing to negotiate. Pawlenty now has the incentive at least to go out not breaking the no new taxes thing. Whether he will be able to do it is another matter.
One thing has been left out of the comments so far.
At least Pawlenty had the democrats for breakfast … so far, he has had them for lunch!