Legislative Heroes of the 2009 Session Rep. Jim Abeler

Last year two of this years legislators took an awful lot of grief from their own party, mostly over 1 vote. Those two legislators were (of course) Representatives Jim Abeler(Anoka) and Rod Hamilton. During the waning days of this years session, however, these two were real heroes for the people of Minnesota. A great case in point can be found in Sunday nights session (video footage found at the House website). First was Rep Abeler - speaking on the over-ride of the Governor's line item veto of the General Assistance Medical Care portion of the HHS bill. I have transcribed a portion of it here, but you need to listen to the entire thing (starting at the 31:50 mark).....

I didn't know we were going to be working on this veto today Madame Speaker....I don't have a prepared bunch of speech so I have a couple of thoughts I will offer you...we have had...we are in probably one of the most challenging times our state has seen certainly in my lifetime and I turn 55 tomorrow (Monday - Happy belated Birthday Rep. Abler)...we have struggled this session to come to grips with that...General Assistance is a very important program and the thought of not having it gives a lot of us pause - I suspect that everyone in the House is concerned about that. It's a very sober day as we consider this. And none of us take this matter lightly I assure you. I do have a disappointment however - that the same diligence that we were able to put forward for 14 consecutive days of working on that topic...has come to a stop. I knew - we all knew whatever the disposition of that bill that we'd be short 100, 200, 300 or more million dollars to get out of here under anybodies plan and the billion dollars that has been brought forward as the answer to the funding leaves the targets that we pulled off of the floor light by half a billion dollars. And so nobody should be surprise that there was an action by the chief manager of the state to do something! It is not the choice I would have picked...but that's what got picked...So what do we do now? We still have 29 - no excuse me 31 hours left to get out of here and so if we should over-ride this veto and re-instate the $381 million into the budget - what you have now is the need to find a way to find $381 million other dollars and I can't tell you the frustration that I have had...as I have been thinking about this kind of day since November...the people have come to my office and said 'don't cut me' and I said 'I'm with ya...but help me manage - how do we a bunch of money...that we can reframe and soft land everybody' and they mostly said 'don't cut ME'...I commend Rep. Bly he was one of the first people to forward with a plan to reduce something that was 'valuable' and then and then save another program that was valuable which was later picked up by Rep Hamilton...I commend both of you for setting the spark for making HARD choices...that is what bipartisan work - that is what work is about!..Now I don't know you can pass a bill that would have 2, 300, 400 million dollars in cuts off of this floor - that is not my problem - my problem is to think of good ideas that can manager our way out of this that will cause the least amount of harm to the least amount of people in the worst economic crisis we have seen since ANY OF US have been around...people are challenged but we still have momentum and we can still make some wise leadership decisions on the state level...if this gets held up - I've met some of you up there - I treat them in my office (for my Utah readers Rep. Abeler is a chiropracter - ed) and I know the challenges that they have...so let's say we spare this group - if we adopt the billion dollar target that was set by the bill that was proposed (the bill I thought we would be talking about now) - the public safety target WOULD HAVE TO BE SLASHED and the target for transportation would be slashed and there might not be transit anymore...and so we have to make some choices - we have to lead - we have to govern - how do we do that - with all respect to the way it's been going - it's not by having us wait in the hallway for the meeting to be called to get to work...we're all here to do the best we can and if we vote to uphold this veto today I will tell you SOMEBODY ELSE WILL BE CUT because there is no plan to back fill 381 million dollars. So at risk are these great people who need the help - THEY NEED THE HELP - but which disabled group is then going to take the hit, which hospital not on this list...will be unalloted! Which group of people who have a need in education...the courts or in some other program would be unalloted...I have done my best - I will keep doing my best - I will stay up all night if it takes but members - if we do this we are going to go home and leave even more programs vulnerable through our inability to choose. WE MUST CHOOSE! And so vote how you like on this - this is your choice you vote your conscience if you think this is the best way to leave all the other topics unanswered - well then that's your choice. But for me - with the most compassion that I can muster - for the people up in the audience who I serve with my career and who I love to help and serve even when they can't make their co-pays even if they can't afford anything this is not the right vote for today....

Bold my emphasis - capitals Rep Abeler's emphasis. Rep. Abeler made many fine points about the need for leadership - the leadership that even august political publications like PIM have said was missing from the Democrats this session. Is it any wonder why the Governor has chosen to "go it alone"? Decisions needed to be made. The state of Minnesota is already facing a $6.4 billion deficit and the Democrats in the Legislature proposed spending that would put the state $3 billion more in debt (and they have a constitutionally mandate to balance the budget). The DFL led legislature made decisions (more on some of them in the Rod Hamilton post) to spend money on things like earthworm research OVER the people who need GAMC. It is a decision that they need to live with!

Meanwhile - this critic (from last year) of Rep. Jim Abeler must stand up and commend HIM for making the hard decisions and having the courage to stand by them (as he did last year I know...) and for giving such an empassioned plea for leadership. Your common sense and your ability to see that the Minnesota taxpayers are seriously over burdened are a welcome breath of fresh air.