Las week I predicted that Governor Pawlenty would begrudgingly allow the 2007 Tax Bill to become law simply by ignoring it. Unlike other states where failing to sign a bill is sometimes called the Governor’s “pocket veto”, in Minnesota an act of the State Legislature becomes law if the Governor signs it or fails to veto it within three days of his official receipt of the bill. I knew that Governor Pawlenty did not like some elements of the 2007 Tax Bill, but I thought that he’d ultimately allow it to become law because there were provisions in the bill that he did like.
I was wrong. He vetoed the bill yesterday. You can read the Star Tribune’s take on the veto at this link: Star Tribune. You can read the Governor’s press release on the veto at this link: Governor Pawlenty.
I am disappointed that he vetoed the bill, personally. Not because Eden Prairie was going to get a windfall out of the bill. We weren’t. True, there was quite a bit of new Local Government Aid in the bill for some Minnesota cities, but Eden Prairie wasn’t one of them. There was a provision in the Tax Bill to study the effectiveness of the state’s Fiscal Disparities tax base sharing program. This program hurts Eden Prairie taxpayers. The state really needs to take a look at it and determine if it’s doing what it ought to be doing. Now study appears to be dead for yet another year. I’m also disappointed that the veto puts 2,000 new jobs that were planned as part of an expansion of Thomson-West in Eagan and the new expansion of the Mall of America at risk. Those jobs would have good for the metro area, and good for the state’s tax revenue base.
But it’s the Governor’s prerogative in our system of government to do what he did for the reasons he did it. That’s the way it works.
