Minnesota Republicans, in their "compromise offer", were willing to have new revenue sources or borrow money, if Gov. Mark Dayton agreed to their conservative legislative agenda of restricting abortions, banning stem cell research, requiring voters to show a photo ID at the polls, plus approve their redistricting plan according to news reports coming out now from the budget negotiations.
The Star Tribune reports the Republicans used policy as a bargaining chip.
Talks may have also broken down because an earlier GOP offer asked Dayton to accept controversial policy positions the Republicans pushed for this year, including photo ID requirements at the polls and abortion restrictions. An offer sheet provided to the Star Tribune said the policy adoptions were in exchange for "new revenue in a compromise offer."
Analysis from the MinnPost describes the massive philosophical divide during the budget negotiations between the Republicans and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor governor.
In the end, Republicans and Dayton weren't only separated by fiscal issues. Republicans apparently were still loading bills with other goodies from their platform. In the final days of negotiations, Republicans were still insisting on legislation supporting voter ID and restrictions on abortion and stem cell research in their talks with Dayton.
The Minnesota Independent quotes state Sen. Tom Bakk in a Minnesota Public Radio interview, saying:
“Things like restricting a women’s right to choose, things like making it a crime for the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic to do stem cell research.”
“There was this huge list of things they just had to have to even borrow money,” he said of the final negotiations where the GOP wanted to shift education funding down the road and borrow from future tobacco settlement money.
Dayton, according to MPR, scaled back his income proposal on Thursday morning, raising taxes only on "Minnesotans making more than $1 million annually", the "Republicans rejected the proposal".
Even after the governor, "took his income tax plan off the table", the Minnesota Republicans still insisted on borrowing money against the state's tobacco settlement to make up the remaining budget gap.
The final hours:
Dayton wrote GOP leaders a letter, saying he was willing to adopt the GOP's school payment shifts, but would not accept selling tobacco bonds because it was not a permanent deficit solution. As an alternative, Dayton proposed either reinstating his income tax increase on those making more than $1 million annually or a smaller tax increase on those making more than $1 million in addition to $303 million in new corporate tax dollars, $13 million in non-resident estate taxes and $32 million in new sales taxes.
June 30, evening: In a letter, GOP leaders rejected Dayton's offer, writing that "substituting an income tax increase for the tobacco bond funding can only be seen as a step backwards in our negotiations." They offered their short-term "lights on" bill instead. The government shut down at midnight.
The Republican's "lights on" bill would have further restricted abortion access, ban stem cell research, required voter photo ID, and approved their redistricting plan. Whether it be over taxes or conservative social agenda, Republican zealotry led to a shutdown the Minnesota state government. I hope the North Star State will not be the blueprint Congressional Republicans use in the debt ceiling negotiations, but chances are it will be. It's going to be a long, hot July in D.C.