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Its practically a rite of spring in St. Paul now: The trees blossom, the birds come back and the workings inside the Minnesota Capitol go dark.

Thats what happened this week, as negotiations over the states two-year, roughly $45 billion state budget went from plodding steadily toward a resolution to what seemed like a sudden break, between the Republicans who control the Legislature and Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton.

Those tensions set off a series of moves by Republican leaders that started late Monday and went into Tuesday evening, as GOP lawmakers worked to send their budget bills to Daytons desk without a compromise.

In response, the governor assured reporters Tuesday that he will veto them all, leaving everyone in the dark as to what happens next.

The two parties have less than two weeks until May 22, their constitutionally imposed deadline to adjourn the 2017 session. If they dont finish on time, Dayton can call legislators back into a special session to finish budget bills. But if that doesnt happen before July 1 the start of the next fiscal year state government operations will go into automatic shutdown mode.

Like most sessions, lawmakers convened in January saying what they almost always say: that they didnt want things to end this year with closed-door negotiations, late-night maneuvers and deals pushed until the final hours. That it was going to be different this year.

And it was, for a time. Lawmakers bumped up deadlines to get major budget work done and made it to negotiations with the governor earlier than usual. But, as in most sessions, the drama happened anyway.

Its had different forms, Dayton said Tuesday, remarking on how recent sessions have all concluded with last-minute blowups. We each have very different views about whats best for Minnesotans. Minnesotans should expect that were going to have these very significant differences; the question is how we are going to resolve them.

The rift came after Dayton and legislative leaders had spent the previous five days in meetings discussing a budget deal, usually emerging from those discussions with few details to share but generally positive remarks about the process. They described talks as productive and cordial, even though lawmakers still had major differences to work out.

Those differences largely center on what to do with the states $1.5 billion budget surplus. Republicans want tax cuts something north of $1 billion though they also want to trim spending on health and human services and state government administration. The governor is proposing to raise spending on things like health care, education and state government.

On Monday, budget negotiations moved into the horse-trading phase. Dayton made an offer on four smaller budget areas public safety, higher education, economic development and agriculture reducing his proposed total spending by about $74 million, he said.

After the meeting, House Speaker Kurt Daudt emerged and said hed hoped things were moving faster, but they were still making progress. Things at the Legislature never move as quickly as I would like them to, and Im sure the public probably feels the same way, but we are working hard and we are working well together.

MinnPost photo by Briana Bierschbach

After the meeting, House Speaker Kurt Daudt emerged and said hed hoped things were moving faster, but they were still making progress.

But behind the scenes, things started moving very quickly. Republicans left the meeting with the governor and went into meetings with rank-and-file legislators. Later that evening, they began preparing their own budget bills for a vote, with or without a compromise in hand. On Tuesday morning, Republican Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka said negotiations had slowed down over the weekend and the offers presented by Dayton on Monday were unacceptable.

The steps were so small on the smallest bills that we didnt know how we could possibly get there, Gazelka said. I think they were sincere first offers, but they were unacceptable and would not lead to getting done on time.

Daudt said they were worried Dayton was slow-walking a deal because he would benefit politically the longer negotiations take. The governor gains leverage if he pushes us to the end, Daudt said, describing the move to vote on their budget as a backup plan.

Republicans and Dayton met again Tuesday afternoon, with Republicans presenting an offer on all of their budget bills, reducing their tax cut proposal from $1.13 billion to $1 billion and spending more on state government and health and human services. Dayton countered that with another offer on the four budget bills discussed the day before, coming down a total of $122 million.

Republicans left the meeting frustrated they werent making progress. Within hours, they began taking up their budget bills on the House and Senate floors.

What does this all mean for the end of session? At the very least, the move delays further negotiations between Dayton and Republicans. It will take several days for legislators to pass all of their budget bills and send them to Dayton. The governor said that he will veto all of the budget proposals.

"They should know that I will veto every one of those bills, which will leave us with the same differences several days from now that we face today, Dayton said. Their actions will make it much more difficult for them to fulfill their constitutional responsibility to send me budget bills, which I can sign, by May 22.

Dayton added that the actions of the GOP leadership, in the middle of discussions with his office, have changed the tone of negotiations going forward. All the flurry of activity over the last 12 hours without any discussion with us, without any forewarning, Dayton said. It certainly changes the tenor, for sure.

Republicans and governor are not unfamiliar with discord: They went into a 20-day government shutdown over the budget in 2011, and the last two sessions under divided government have ended in acrimony, special session talks and plenty of unfinished business.

MinnPost photo by Briana Bierschbach

Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka: The steps were so small on the smallest bills that we didnt know how we could possibly get there.

For now, all sides say they still want to work together, even if their actions are sending mixed signals about whether that can actually happen. Ive done this before and Ive been involved in a few of the blowups before the breakthrough, and that does happen, Daudt said Tuesday. I don't think this is [a blowup]. We want to work with the governor, we want to get this solved.

For his part, Dayton remained open to meeting with Republicans on Wednesday, even as they continued to pass budget bills he plans to veto. Daytons daily public schedule, which he releases to reporters, read that Wednesday is intentionally left open to be responsive to the legislative process.

If that doesnt happen, perhaps theyll talk about it Friday. Thats when the governor and legislative leaders are scheduled to be together on a boat in the middle of the Mississippi River in St. Cloud for the states fishing opener.

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After negotiations falter, Dayton vows to veto 'every one' of Republicans' budget bills - MinnPost

But in the week since, Senate Republicans are quickly coming up against some of the same obstacles that dogged House Republicans -- and dealing with new problems of their own creation.

Republican leaders have spent the early days of their Obamacare repeal effort pelted with questions about why they announced a 13-man working group last week that didn't include a single female senator.

"I would have recommended a little diversity there from a gender perspective," Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, told reporters Tuesday.

Throughout the health care debate in the House, Republican senators didn't shy away from criticizing the negotiations happening across the Capitol. More than one senator warned that policies in the House were dead on arrival in the Senate. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul led the press corps in a search for the bill he accused House leaders of keeping under lock and key even from members of the Republican Party. And, just after the House bill was passed, Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted that it should be viewed with extra "caution" having been finalized the night before.

Now in the hot seat, Republican senators are finding it's not so easy to tackle the party's signature campaign issue.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to deflect questions about the working group's lack of women during his weekly press conference Tuesday by arguing that health care would be negotiated between all 52 Republican members of the Senate and that women were invited to speak up on the issue of health care reform whenever they wanted.

"Well, the working group -- the working group that counts is all 52 of us and we -- we're having extensive meetings, as I said a few minutes ago, every day. Nobody's being excluded based upon gender," McConnell said.

But there was no denying that the working group -- which had been intended to help bridge divisions between moderates and conservative s-- had morphed into its own story. A GOP leadership aide acknowledged the issue was a "'distraction' for Republicans who already have a very difficult task ahead of them."

Tuesday there was a concerted to shift the optics. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia, was invited to speak on the Medicaid program in her state during a health care meeting Tuesday afternoon. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, presented on her state's high risk pool program during the GOP member luncheon. Vice President Mike Pence even tweeted out a photo of he and Capito talking about health care, a kind of proof of inclusion photograph.

But the issue of including women in the working group only revealed another delicate relationship senators will have to manage in upcoming months: the one with the White House.

Tuesday, the Senate got an early taste of how the White House can insert itself into Capitol Hill negotiations at any moment. As Republican leaders were taking heat for not officially including women in their working group, one senior White House official told CNN that there would be a woman added to the 13-member, all-male group to clear up the optics.

"You'll see those optics addressed," the official said.

The suggestion from the White House followed a familiar pattern from when health care was being debated in the House. Despite GOP congressional aides' insistence that House leaders set the floor schedule and wouldn't set a bill on the floor until they were sure they had the votes, the White House often applied pressure to move the legislation along, leaking frequently that a vote on health care was imminent.

Senate Republicans have tried to be clear: They respect the White House's opinions on policy and process, but need to be given the time to hash out a bill themselves.

"Look, we have to work it our way," said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds. "They can help us, they can assist us, they can provide information, they can be responsive to our needs in terms of getting good data, but I think the Senate will work at an appropriate pace."

Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Senate health committee and member of the health care working group, said that "we're going to take the time we need to get it right. That is the Senate's attitude."

"They know the Senate's got a unique role to play," Sen. John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota told reporters earlier this week of the White House.

As if managing the optics and the White House's role weren't enough, Republicans also have the hard work of actually negotiating a bill between two disparate factions ahead, something they warn could take quite a bit of time. Senators also are waiting for the House bill to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office before they can even really dive in. Under budget reconciliation, the process Republicans are using to pass a bill with just 51 votes, they must have an estimate of how much their House bill will cost before they can commit ideas to paper for their own plan.

Senate aides insist that the process won't happen overnight. One Republican Senate aide with knowledge of the negotiations told CNN that having health care done by August recess would even be "incredibly optimistic."

"I think if you were incredibly optimistic, you would have something done by August, and that is if everything goes according to planned and if everyone sitting around the campfire is singing Kumbaya," the aide said.

CNN's Ted Barrett, Phil Mattingly and Elizabeth Landers contributed to this report.

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Senate Republicans start health care push with missteps - CNN

New York Times

Critics at Town Halls Confront Republicans Over Health Care New York Times But this week, with the House on a break, few of the 217 Republicans who approved legislation to repeal and replace critical parts of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, chose to defend their votes at public meetings. Those who did were, in several ... Few Republicans hold town halls after health care voteABC News Democrats Shame Republicans With 'Adopt a District' Plan to Hold Town Halls for Missing GOP RepresentativesAlterNet Democrats Are Shaming Republicans by Holding Town Halls in GOP DistrictsNew Republic Mother Jones -The Guardian all 46 news articles »

See the rest here:
Critics at Town Halls Confront Republicans Over Health Care - New York Times

Democrats hold a 16-point lead over Republicans in a generic House ballot, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

TheQuinnipiac University Pollfound that54 percent of respondents said they would like to see the Democrats control the House of Representatives, while 38 percent said the Republicans. Eight percent said they did not know or had no answer.

A majority of Americans disapproves of the job both parties are doing in Congress.

Fifty-eight percent disapprove of the job Democrats are doing, while 34 percent approve.

Republicans currently hold 238 seats in the House, meaning Democrats need to flip at least 25 seats in the 2018 mid-term elections to gain a majority in the lower chamber.

The same poll also found that President Trumps job approval rating has dipped to a near-record low of 36 percent.

There is no way to spin or sugarcoat these sagging numbers, Tim Malloy, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a press release.

The erosion of white men, white voters without college degrees and independent voters, the declaration by voters that President Donald TrumpDonald TrumpWarren: Trump wants to cut off any investigation of him Le Pen's defeat in France aside, assess populism case by case Dem lawmaker rips Trump for making friends with top Russian diplomat MOREs first 100 days were mainly a failure and deepening concerns about Trumps honesty, intelligence and level headedness are red flags that the administration simply can't brush away.

The Quinnipiac survey was conducted from May 4 to 9, surveying 1,078 voters across the country. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

By comparison, Democrats currently hold a 5.8 point lead on Republicans, according to the RealClearPolitics poll average of the generic House ballot.

Original post:
Poll: Dems lead Republicans by 16 points on generic House ballot - The Hill

President Trump says he is "so confident" the Senate will pass the American Health Care Act and send it to his desk to be signed into law but Republican senators say there's a lot of work to be done. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Some more literally and clumsily than others, Republican lawmakers are running from the House-passed American Health Care Act. Back home, Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa) ran away from questioning about the AHCA, Newsweek reports: On Monday afternoon, the staunchly conservativeRepublican andmember of the House Freedom Caucusfled an interview withJosh Scheinblum, a reporter with TV9 in Dubuque, after Scheinblum had the temerity to ask Blum a series of difficult questions.

Asked why he wanted to exclude those from outside his district from a town hall, Blum got testy:

I dont represent all Iowans, Blum countered, still smiling but with a newfound edge to his voice. I represent the First District of Iowa.Thatd be like saying, shouldnt I be able to, even if I live in Dubuque,go vote in Iowa City during the election because Id like to vote in that district instead?

A child behind Blum offereda charming grin, likely unrelated to the healthcare debate. [Local reporter Josh] Scheinblum then posedthe following question: Would you still take donations from a Republican in Iowa City?

At this point, Blum rose and beganto pull off the microphone attached to his gray pullover sweater.

This is ridiculous, a visibly agitated Blum declared as he prepared to leave.Hes just gonna sit here and just, just badger me.

The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that his town hall didnt go much better:

Rep. Rod Blum, R-Iowa, met a hostile crowd Monday night in his hometown while fielding questions on topics ranging from health care and immigration to school vouchers and climate change.

He took the podium to a mix of cheers, boos and applause from a crowd of about 1,000 at Dubuque Senior High School. After an introductory statement, Blum took questions from crowd members selected at random during the town hall event.

The two-term incumbent faced regular interruptions from shouted questions, stomping feet and boos when delivering answers in support of last weeks U.S. House bill repealing and replacing major provisions of the federal health care law known as Obamacare. Blum voted in favor of the bill.

Even before his vote, Blum was one of the Republicans at risk in 2018. He may be even more vulnerable than initial ratings projected after Mondays meltdown.

By contrast, Republican senators are carefully pivoting from the terms of a bill that they know is without policy or political merit. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), just reelected in Ohio by a huge margin, told Fox News, I think we can do better bytaking what the House haspassed, improving it in certainways, being sure we arent pulling therug out from under peoplewho are currently getting coverage and at the end of the day, over timebegin to see these premiums andthese co-pays and deductibleslevel off and not continue torise. Obviously, the Trumpcare bill doesnt help matters. Portman added: This is the biggest problem wehave really in our economy, too.Wages are flat and yet expensesare up and the number oneincreased cost is healthcare.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is painting quite a contrast with the feverish, irresponsible process the House went through. This process will not be quick or simple or easy, but it must be done, he said on Monday.

So why was it then that the House felt so compelled to throw together a bill with no Congressional Budget Office scoring, no robust debate, no hearings and no participation by Democrats? House leadership obviously made a political calculation pass an indefensible bill and then lieaboutit. Thats not an option for the Senate, which will be expected to pass something that works. Judging by what Blum encountered, the House approach isnt working even on political terms.

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Republicans are running from the AHCA - Washington Post (blog)