Politics

ST. PAUL (AP) ― Deadlocked with Democrats over taxes, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is testing the limits of his power to balance the budget without their consent.

The Republican governor has said he will resort to a rarely used gubernatorial power called "unallotment," which allows him to cancel spending to erase deficits. Minnesota's budget is projected to be $4.6 billion short over the next two years, but the budget bills approved by the DFL-run Legislature don't fix the entire shortfall.

It would be an unprecedented use of the governor's authority to unallot spending -- a power held in some form by 38 of the nation's governors.

Records in the state Legislative Reference Library show only four times unallotment has been used in Minnesota since its enactment in 1939. Pawlenty has done it twice, most recently in December, when he pulled back $271 million in aid to local governments, social services programs and state agencies.

If Pawlenty unallots again, it wouldn't happen until July or later. In the meantime, he is using the line-item veto to slice spending from budget bills.

Last week, he vetoed a $1 billion tax increase for the wealthy, credit card companies and alcohol drinkers. He and Democrats are separated by $1 billion to $3 billion on spending in a budget that will total $31 billion to $34 billion, depending on how deep the cuts go.

The Legislature is required by constitution to adjourn by midnight Monday.

Pawlenty's move is the latest twist in a rocky relationship. In 2005, he and a split-party Legislature shut down parts of state government as they tussled over spending on health and welfare programs. The out was a "health impact fee" of 75 cents a pack on cigarettes.

On Thursday, Pawlenty line-item vetoed one of the health programs he has often complained about as a budget burden. The $381 million cut would eliminate state-funded insurance for about 30,000 low-income, childless adults, some of whom could transfer to another public program.

With unallotment, Minnesota Republicans are praising Pawlenty for shaking things up at the Capitol. It could earn him accolades, too, among national Republicans if he takes a rumored leap into presidential politics.

Democrats see a power grab.

"His go-it-alone ultimatum is not good for the state. We are not a dictatorship. We are not a monarchy," Assistant Senate Majority Leader Tarryl Clark, a St. Cloud Democrat, said Friday.

She added: "Minnesotans should be very concerned if this governor and future governors decide the Legislature doesn't matter."

The unallotment statute allows the finance commissioner, with the governor's approval and after consultation with a legislative advisory commission, to cut unspent appropriations and suspend or delay payments. The commission can't block unallotment, and the law gives discretion to the administration in deciding what to cut.

Some states require across-the-board cuts or the approval of legislative committees, while others limit the percentage a governor can cut without legislative involvement.

Broadening the use of unallotment in Minnesota could lead to lawsuits. Iron Range legislators sued Pawlenty in 2003 after the governor extracted $49 million from a mining fund to balance the budget. Pawlenty prevailed.

"It's always been an item that governors have used to deal with problems that were in the millions. Now we're dealing with a problem that's a billion or more," said Paul Cerkvenik, an attorney in Virginia, Minn., who represented the legislators. "This is very unprecedented. There's no question about that."

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The President of the U.S. was granted the power to line-item veto legislation in 1996. In 1998, U.S. Supreme Court ruled that law unconstitutional. Most State Governors retain this power, however.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)