Capitol Retort: Using the surplus; Judiciary chair; John Lennon

Question 1: Public employee unions are voting on early retirement incentives for some state workers. The current $461 million surplus could pay for those early retirements, helping to ease a projected $1.27 billion deficit for 2021-22. How much chance is there that lawmakers will use today’s surplus money on buyouts, instead of other things, to spare the state future pain?

Pete Orput, Washington County Attorney: It’s hard to predict what the Legislature would do, especially when it comes to good ideas. They don’t always fall in line with good ideas. So I’ll be curious to see how they do deal with that. But I think it’s a great idea.

Greg Davids, former GOP House Taxes Committee chair: That so-called surplus—which I do question—has been spent 20 times over. So I would just say that I love the public employee folks, but get in line.

Carlos Mariani, DFL House Public Safety committee chair: It’s a good and sound idea and something we should be seriously considering. I doubt that it will be a top priority with our current surplus, because we have some real strong need to respond to COVID realities in our state. I think that’s where our priority is going to be.

Scott Dibble, DFL state senator: That is a very hard question to answer. Because anyone who makes commitments on a particular pot of money without taking into account the full array of issues, demands and emerging dynamics, I don’t think is analyzing the matter well. There is also the opportunity to help take care of workers in the short-term who are being significantly impacted by the downturn in the economy. We just have to see how much we’re talking about, how much it would ease the projected deficit in the next biennium and how much we should be doing for stressed citizens of Minnesota immediately.

John Kaul, photographer, retired long-time lobbyist: I guess my reaction would be that there is probably greater pain in other areas of the budget that ought to be addressed. There will be a lot of competition for the money. We’re now in at least the second or third spike of COVID-19 and this is going to be the worst one. Thanksgiving hasn’t even weighed in yet. So I the impact of a virus on people’s lives is going to—and I hate to use the word—trump the desire to pursue early retirements.

Question 2: Third-term Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville, is the House Judiciary committee’s new chair. She is a Hennepin County prosecutor, a descendant of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and a pretty tough political in-fighter. How big—and how effective—a change do you expect she will bring to the committee that funds and oversees the Judicial Branch?  

Orput: My guess is that, being a Hennepin County prosecutor, she is going to be very sensitive to what happens in court and how it works in practicality. I think that’ll make her an outstanding leader. I’m really excited to see her in there.

Davids: First of all, I congratulate her for that appointment from Speaker [Melissa] Hortman. But I think that she may have a rather ambitious agenda that I believe will be kept in check greatly by one Senator Warren Limmer [the Senate’s GOP Public Safety and Judiciary committee chair].

Mariani: I’m looking forward to her chairmanship of the committee. She is a strong thinker and a strong actor and she I get along well. To the degree that both of our committees continue to be yoked, I think we will make a really good team—particularly as we interact with a Senate that’s been troublesome on a number of issues. So, yeah, I think it’s a good choice and I think it’s going to be a great year for her to learn the finer art, if you will, of being a chairperson, where you’ve got to balance all sorts of interests against your own very strong desires with your proposals.

Dibble: I am a big fan of hers and a good friend. I’m excited by this development. I think she will bring a lot of thoughtfulness. The fact that she is a woman, a person of color, highly principled and very experienced means she will be an effective counterweight to Senator Limmer, who has closed his eyes and refused to move forward on important measure of gun-safety reform and much-needed criminal justice reform.

Kaul: I think her priorities will be different. I think she’ll be much more focused on people who are probably getting a raw deal in the system. By that, I mean people of color and poor folks who are going to get a much more sympathetic hearing.

Question 3: Beatle John Lennon would have turned 80 this year and Dec. 8 was the 40th anniversary of his assassination. How important a figure was he in your life?

Orput: Who was he again? That’s my answer. [Laughs.] I don’t know, I was busy listening to the Rolling Stones.

Davids: Of course, I grew up with the Beatles, so they were very, very important. I’ve got all my Beatles albums. They were extremely influential and they appealed to the masses worldwide, they really did. I loved their music and they were great entertainers. But their politics? Well, maybe not so much.

Mariani: Frankly, not too important in my life. I was and still am a Rolling Stones aficionado. As a young guy, there was sort of a dichotomy between the Stones and the Beatles, pop versus true rock, that kind of stuff. I have grown to appreciate what the Beatles are and were, and even technically what they did with music. I know that John was at the center of that. He was part of a consciousness that I was not that super-aware of when I was younger. But I became more aware later, in terms of a fuller expression of humanity. I do want to embrace that. At the same time, he was a flawed human being—not unlike many other people that I admire. So I certainly acknowledge his place in our pop culture and our psychology and I place them him among several others that influenced me. But I wouldn’t put him at the top.

Dibble: John Lennon was not huge in my life, necessarily. I appreciate everything he did to inform the musical and poetic heroes of my life. But I was probably more attuned to David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Bono of U2 and the like—I’m kind of between a Boomer and a Gen X’er. Certainly his music and his poetry I enjoyed and listen to a lot. I certainly appreciated his calls for peace and peaceful living. And I think absolutely, especially Bono inherited that and carried on that legacy.

Kaul: I am an odd duck. I’ve always been into classical music and I never was marching to the beat of my own time. But the Beatles penetrated through that barrier. John Lennon’s message—his anti-war activity and some of his lyrics—were influential on me.