Shakopee Lawmaker Assessing Lessons From Shutdown

Ten days after Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican lawmakers passed a $34 billion budget to end the state government shutdown, Shakopee’s Rep. Mike Beard (R-District 35A) is still assessing lessons of this legislative session.

Beard was deeply entrenched in the details of the negotiations: He chaired the Transportation Policy and Finance committee and served on the committees forEnvironment Policy and Finance, Government Operations and Ways and Means. He considers the final budget a victory against big government. Attempts to reach Sen. Claire Robling (R-District 35) for her take on the completed session were unsuccessful.

Shakopee Patch sat with Beard to get his analysis of the shutdown, the session as a whole and the lessons he learned.

Patch: What surprised you the most about what happened this session? 

Beard: I think (the shutdown) knocked off some of the naivete. We took the governor at his word last year when he said we wouldn’t shut down the government. We knew he’d complain about the Republicans being cheap, but we were really surprised when he actually shut it down. I think some of us were a little naive.

Patch: Were you happy with the results?

Beard: The budget was adequate. The big thing was that we did not increase revenues to feed the beast. We’ve got a government that is getting too big for the economy, and I think this budget helps to rein it in and get it under control. That is a victory that I’m grateful for.

Patch: But the shutdown had a big impact on Canterbury Park, which is in your district.

Beard: Shutting down Canterbury Park was totally unnecessary. The governor could have avoided that with the stroke of his pen. In doing so, he could have kept 1,000 people in jobs (at Canterbury) and another 700 at Running Aces.

Patch: If you could go back into the session and do anything differently, what would it be?

Beard: I should have fought harder to separate the Transportation bill into two parts and protected Minnesota highway projects from being halted during the shutdown. That money (98 percent of the $4.7 billion bill) had already been earmarked and couldn't have been used elsewhere. If I could go back and do it over again, I would have drawn a harder line to keep those highway construction projects moving. That would have kept around 14,000 people in jobs.