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Politics & Government

Rep. Slocum: Budget Negotiations May Have Violated State Law

Unhappy with outcome of budget negotiations and secrecy, Rep. Slocum addressed the good and bad of the final budget.

Following up her , Rep. Linda Slocum (DFL-Richfield) talks about her issues with the secrecy of the special session, how the new budget bills will affect Richfield and more.

Richfield Patch: How will some of the budget bills signed into law Wednesday morning directly affect people in Richfield? Where are they most likely to notice it?

Rep. Linda Slocum: They’ll see increases in their property taxes. If they have kids in school they’ll notice it—their kids will have fewer services, fewer sports and larger class sizes. Schools have already been cut to the bone. You’re going to really need to bird-dog your child’s education.

My constituents will see less street sweeping, less plowing—those will only happen when it’s really necessary. I hope this isn’t the new reality, that our quality of life isn’t shrinking. And I guess I don’t believe it is the new reality, but it seems so for now. We’re going to have problems again in two years. We didn’t solve anything.

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Richfield Patch: What were you most pleased and displeased with in the final budget?

Slocum: The list is long. The best thing in the compromises here was the bonding for Bloomington and Richfield. We got , the infrastructure will be laid down. There’s quite a bit of economic development in that area, [so] the bonding bill was the high point for me. If we’re in a recession the price of materials and labor is down, so everything is favorable to a bonding bill.

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The second high spot would be the pensions [bill]. I voted for it. It solved a number of statewide budget problems.

The biggest travesty? The education bill. It’s a cash cow for the state. We balance the books on the backs of school kids, and all that does is hurt our kids.

Richfield Patch: Is there anything you want your constituents to know about the shutdown you feel wasn’t made publicly available to them?

Slocum: I know members in my caucus were asked if they had a good relationship—or any relationship—to go and sit down with Republicans who might come across. Like with the tranpsortation bill, when we overrode Pawlenty. If we’d just had six Republicans in the House, we could’ve passed fair taxes.

I met with a couple of people who I actually respect and like overall, and talked to them about [crossing over]. I said that I know it’s a tough thing to do, but could you do it because it’s the right thing to do? I appealed to their higher standards, trying to convince them that it isn’t just about getting reelected—you’re here to do what makes the state better. Yes, you have to do what’s right for your district, but you also have to do what’s best for the state as a whole.

Richfield Patch: And were there any responses?

Slocum: There was no movement. One [legislator] in particular, whose name I won’t mention, who is a Republican, is a good guy and a smart guy and he gets it. But he said the punishment is too harsh.

Remember what they did to Jim Abler? They stripped him of any kind of leadership roles, they put him up publicly. It was horrible. And yet that transportation bill was so necessary. Because of the punishment that was doled out [by caucus leaders], the more thoughtful, the more rational and less ideological Republicans [during the shutdown] weren’t moving.

Richfield Patch: Many Minnesotans were dissatisfied that the budget negotiations were going on behind closed doors, with some public advocates even suggesting some of the state's open meeting laws were being violated. Was that happening in your opinion?

Slocum: Isn’t that shameful?

First we have a cone of silence. I realize there have to be some meetings behind closed doors, but when everything’s behind closed doors ... that’s the Republican majority. That’s how they do business. I believe it hurts Minnesota. One of the most reprehensible things about this was the secrecy, but that’s how the majority runs things.

Richfield Patch: So was there discussion amongst legislators that some laws might have been broken?

Slocum: Yes. A couple of more vocal lawyers on the Democratic side wanted to make a huge issue of this. I think they pretty much had the caucuses' support. This was such a fragile thing, our leadership said "do it afterwards," because the whole thing could fall apart.

In fact, it was so fragile, I didn’t talk to too many Republicans because my anger level was too high. I don’t need to argue. I just kind of stayed away from everybody.

But this is public policy, this is stuff the state citizens have to live with the next two years, and to do pretty much all of it in secrecy is just ridiculous. I realize it would have caused the shutdown to last another day or two, but to post the bills would’ve been a a fairer way to do this.

But I also see [saying] "let’s get it over with, get the state back up and moving."

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