Tim Pawlenty

Tim Pawlenty
Governor Pawlenty at the Minnesota Governor's Residence in 2006.
39th Governor of Minnesota
Incumbent
Assumed office January 6, 2003
Lieutenant	Carol Molnau
Preceded by	Jesse Ventura
Chairman of the National Governors Association
In office 2007–2008
Preceded by	Janet Napolitano
Succeeded by	Ed Rendell
Personal details
Born	(1960-11-27) November 27, 1960 St. Paul, Minnesota
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Mary Pawlenty
Residence	Eagan, Minnesota
Alma mater	University of Minnesota
Profession	Lawyer

Timothy James Pawlenty (born November 27, 1960) is the 39th and current Governor of Minnesota and a member of the Republican Party. In the Minnesota gubernatorial election of 2002, as the Republican nominee, he was elected Governor of Minnesota and inaugurated on January 6, 2003. He was reelected in 2006, and his second term will end on January 3, 2011.

Background

Tim Pawlenty was born on November 27, 1960, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and raised in nearby South St. Paul as one of five children to a milk truck driver and a housewife. When he was 16, his mother died of cancer. Pawlenty took to hockey and played on his high school's junior varsity squad. He later played at his own Governor's Inaugural Hockey Game in South Saint Paul.

Pawlenty earned his undergraduate degree in Political Science at the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts in 1983. He later graduated in 1986 with a law degree at the University of Minnesota Law School. In law school, he met fellow student Mary Anderson and one year later they married, settling in Eagan, Minnesota.

As a practicing attorney, his first job was as a labor law attorney at Rider Bennett, where he had interned during school. Later he was Vice President for the internet company Wizmo Consulting Group.

In 1994, his wife Mary was appointed as a judge of the Dakota County District Court in Hastings, Minnesota and the two began raising their two daughters, Anna and Mara. The family remained at their Eagan home instead of taking the Governor's Residence after Pawlenty was elected in 2002 due to Mary's requirement to stay in her judicial district. In 2007, she left her judicial position to become General Counsel of the National Arbitration Forum, a dispute resolution company based in Minneapolis. She stayed on only briefly before departing for another dispute resolution company, the Gilbert Mediation Center.

With Polish and German heritage, he was raised a Roman Catholic. His conversion to an Evangelical Christian faith is largely attributed to his wife Mary, who is a regular member of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. The church is part of the Minnesota Baptist Conference, and the senior pastor, Leith Anderson, is the president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

One of Pawlenty's brothers is the Public Works Superintendent for the city of White Bear Lake, a St. Paul suburb. He and his brothers Dan and Steve play on a charity hockey team. Pawlenty also likes to run and fish.

Political career

Early career

While living in Eagan, Pawlenty won appointment to the city's Planning Commission. One year later in 1989, at the age of 28, he was elected to one term at the City Council. His ties to Eagan during governorship would be used to voice dissent on the city's chartering process which was later abandoned. Though supportive of his immediate family's hometown, he also vetoed a 2007 Tax Bill that included employment generating tax breaks for Thomson West, Eagan's primary employer.

Pawlenty's start in state politics began as a campaign advisor for Jon Grunseth's 1990 losing bid for Minnesota governor. His connections to Grunseth's former wife, Vicky Tigwell, would later involve him in an ethics and accountability call with his private employment in 2003.

Pawlenty was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1992. Winning 49 percent of the vote in District 38B (suburban Dakota County), he was re-elected five times and was chosen House Majority Leader when the State Legislature swung Republican in 1998. Independent Governor Jesse Ventura's tax cuts were a priority of Pawlenty's agenda.

2002 gubernatorial campaign

Pawlenty initially wanted to run for governor in 2002, but party leaders made it clear that they favored businessman Brian Sullivan for that spot. Pawlenty shifted his sights to the U.S. Senate but he abandoned those plans when Vice President Dick Cheney asked him to step aside to allow former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman to challenge Senator Paul Wellstone without Republican primary opposition. Pawlenty returned to his original gubernatorial ambitions and won a hard-fought and very narrow victory over Sullivan for the party endorsement.

In the general election, Pawlenty faced two strong opponents. His main rival was veteran Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) state senator Roger Moe. Complicating matters, former Democratic Congressman Tim Penny ran on the Independence Party ticket, with polls at times suggesting a very tight three-man race. In September 2002, the three were essentially tied. Pawlenty campaigned on a pledge not to raise taxes to balance the state's budget deficit, requiring visa expiration dates on driver's licenses, a 24-hour waiting period on abortions, implementing a conceal-carry gun law, and changing the state's education requirements. Pawlenty prevailed over both challengers at the polls. His largest gains since a poll conducted that September were among voters in the suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Governorship, first term

Pawlenty was the chairman of the National Governors Association from 2007 to 2008.

Media opinions

The Washington Post has called him the most conservative Minnesota governor since Governor Theodore Christianson in the 1920s.

Pawlenty has a weekly one-hour radio show on WCCO-AM, a tradition he inherited from his predecessor as governor, Jesse Ventura.

State budget

Pawlenty was elected on a platform of balancing the state's budget without raising taxes. He emphasized his campaign and first term with the Taxpayers League of Minnesota slogan "no new taxes."

During his first year as governor, Pawlenty balanced a deficit of $4.3 billion without raising taxes, primarily by reducing the rate of funding increases for state services, including funding for transportation, social services, and welfare. The local government aid (LGA) program was further reduced to city governments only and program reform dollars were eliminated. In 2004, Attorney General Mike Hatch voiced dissent over the cuts and suggested that sex offenders found in some Minnesota nursing homes were the result of budget cuts to social services programs. Later in his first term, disagreement among parties led to a government shutdown in 2005 from a deadlock between the governor's office and the split-party legislature on the state budget. Transportation, state parks, and other key infrastructures were threatened with the shutdown, dampening the tourism industry.

His plan to hold the line on taxes was not consistent with his raising State fees. State school tuition was largely impacted and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities board members complained, noting students' share of the cost of tuition increased by double-digit percentages in 2003 and the years following. The increase was defended by citing increasing tuition at universities nationwide while some called to maintain affordable higher education at its public universities as part of Minnesota education tradition. Another publicized but minor fee was the "health impact fee" which was a fee on cigarette sales. Pawlenty ran into obstacles between his pledge not to raise taxes and the need he acknowledged for the state to take in more money in a budget deficit. He acknowledged in his first budget that it relied on $300-500 in increased fees that did not include tuition increases at public colleges and universities. The reaction of skeptics, including some at the Taxpayers League, was that Pawlenty had reneged on his campaign promise, arguing that the proposal was simply a tax increase by another name. The measure carried, but since the terms of the 1996 Minnesota Tobacco Settlement stipulated that the state reserved a right to raise taxes, but not fees, on cigarettes, cigarette wholesalers sued, and on December 21, 2005, a District Court judge struck down the fee. However, the Minnesota Supreme Court later reversed that decision, upholding the fee.

On November 30, 2005, a $701 million projected surplus for the 2006–07 biennium was announced, the first budget surplus for the Minnesota state government since 2001. While this came as a considerable relief, it happened just three weeks before Pawlenty's cigarette fee, or tax, was struck down in district court. It also did not include over $700 million for budget deferments owed to the educational system under agreements negotiated during the 2002–04 and 2004–06 biennial budgets.

Funding projects

File:Twins Ballpark.jpg

After the first bill to fund a new Twins Ballpark failed in 2005, Pawlenty stepped in to lend support and revive the proposal between Hennepin County and Twins officials.

Since the Minnesota Constitution prohibits state-run gambling outside of Native territory, Pawlenty proposed negotiating with Minnesota's 11 tribes over profit sharing of their casinos. Legislators also pushed a proposal to turn Canterbury Park horse track into a racino. The plan was poorly received by Northern Tribes who would operate part of the racino, citing reluctance to compete with other tribes. Tribes with casinos opposed the expanded gambling and some legislators objected on moral grounds that the state shouldn't exploit problem gamblers. Politicians in heavy tribal areas feared losing campaign-finance sources if they supported the plan. Delays by the Legislature ended with the bill being pulled from committee. Tribes had spent millions lobbying legislatures in 2004.

Pawlenty worked throughout 2006 to fund a Minnesota Twins baseball stadium in Minneapolis. The resulting Minnesota Twins-Hennepin County ballpark bill called for an increased county sales tax which passed the state legislature and was symbolically signed in at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. The majority of Hennepin County commissioners did not feel a referendum was necessary to approve the sales tax because of the delay it would cause. Pawlenty and the Legislature agreed, citing 10 years already of the project's debate and exempted the county from state law requiring one in the bill.

In June 2006, Pawlenty signed a $999.9 million public works bill that included funding for additional work on the Northstar Commuter rail line (a change in position from reservations about the idea he initially expressed), an expanded Faribault prison, a bioscience building at the University of Minnesota, and science facilities at Minnesota State University Mankato. The bill also funded a $26 million expansion of the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

Education

After the failure and repeal of the Profiles of Learning Kindergarten through 12th grade graduation requirements in a previous session, Pawlenty sought to reinstate them during his governorship. Renamed the Minnesota Academic Standards, they were guided by Department of Education commissioner Cheri Pierson Yecke. The bill's first draft raised several concerns by the education review boards including the amount of content, age-appropriateness, and a European-centric view of the social sciences portion. Yecke revised and expanded material based on the response. Even as both Legislative houses passed the Academic Standards bill, her confirmation as commissioner was rejected by the DFL majority Minnesota Senate. She was seen as an outsider coming from Virginia and became unpopular having pushed the academic reforms during a tight budget session as well as her critical look of Minnesota schools. In her confirmation hearing DFLers also noted concern over her conservative viewpoints.

In June 2006, Governor Pawlenty proposed the ACHIEVE program that would send the top 25% of high school graduates to college. The program would pay for tuition for the first 2 years (4 years for selected fields such as science, technology, engineering and math) and would cost the state and estimated $112 million per 2-year cycle. However the program was not included in the 2007 higher education bill.

Transportation

U.S. Representative Keith Ellison speaking at the site of the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge collapse in Minneapolis. He is flanked by Governor Pawlenty on the picture's left. To right: Mayor R. T. Rybak, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters behind Ellison, Betty McCollum, and Senator Norm Coleman

During Pawlenty's term, urban traffic congestion has come up as a significant concern of voters. He appointed his lieutenant governor, Carol Molnau, as transportation commissioner, who has attempted to reform the transportation department, (Mn/DOT), using concepts such as "design-build". Molnau has said she did not read bridge inspection reports and has been blamed by some for the bridge collapse. Legislators criticized Molnau's performance as transportation commissioner, citing ineffective leadership and management, and removed her from that role in February 2008, a decision Pawlenty thought of as motivated by partisanship.

Pawlenty favored raising fees and imposing toll lanes on roads as the primary means of discouraging excessive traffic. During his term, the carpool lanes of Interstate 394 leading into downtown Minneapolis were converted into high-occupancy toll lanes. Pawlenty used or threatened vetoes in 2005, 2007 and 2008 on legislation funding proposed highway expansion, infrastructure repairs, road maintenance, and mass transit. The 2008 veto was in spite of Pawlenty's announcement that he would consider reversing his opposition to a state gas tax increase for funding road and bridge repairs, in the wake of the collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge. Pawlenty's tax policies were blamed as part of the cause of the collapse by Mayor James Hovland of affluent Edina.

Pawlenty had opposed the Northstar Commuter Rail as a legislator but changed his position in 2004, announcing a funding plan to jump start the project, when the Bush administration determined the rail line was deemed cost-effective and time-saving for commuters.

Ethanol

A United States Postal Service vehicle advertising its use of E85 fuel during the Saint Paul Winter Carnival parade in January 2007.

Minnesota has mandated a 10% mixture of gasoline and ethanol (gasohol) since 1997, while most cars are designed to safely handle 15%. Pawlenty signed into law in May 2005 a bill that will raise the minimum mandated mixture to 20% in 2013. Pawlenty has also lobbied the Governors' Ethanol Coalition to mandate higher ethanol use nationwide.

Conservative Republican governors were not supportive of Pawlenty's presentation on clean energy to the governor's association, which he gave in cooperation with Ed Rendell, who is the governor of Pennsylvania and the NGA's Democratic vice-chairman. With Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Pawlenty is co-chairman of the association's energy committee. The effort received "adamant opposition" from governors of oil producing states.

Health

In 2004, the credibility of Pawlenty's commissioner of health, Dianne Mandernach, suffered when a website posting by the department suggested that abortion might have a role in breast cancer. She also angered many when it was learned she had delayed releasing government research on cancer in miners. In 2007, Mandernach resigned.

Governor Pawlenty initially supported but later disapproved of the importation of less-expensive prescription drugs from Canada to be used with the state's MinnesotaCare health plan, and also as a means to band together with other states and negotiate lower drug prices. Many Minnesota residents traveled to Canada, as well, to get prescriptions filled and the governor was supportive of their efforts to save money. However, the U.S. government put pressure on Canada to cease these practices and banned the importation of drugs from Canada in 2006.

Foreign relations

Tim Pawlenty meeting Minnesota National Guard troops in Kosovo (April 12th 2008)

Since the 1980s, Minnesota governors have increased their travel abroad with the goal of increasing Minnesota's visibility around the world. For example, Governor Pawlenty took a delegation of nearly 200 Minnesotan business, government, academic and civic leaders on a voyage to China in mid-November 2005. The objectives of the weeklong trip were to provide a forum for companies to acquire market information, assess market potential, evaluate market entry strategies and identify potential business partners, as well as to promote Chinese investment in Minnesota. Pawlenty also led Minnesota trade delegations to the Czech Republic in 2004 and Canada in 2003, and went to India in October 2007. Pawlenty's first term coincided with the deployment of National Guardsmen from numerous states, connected with the War on Terror and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pawlenty made trips to Bosnia (2003), Kosovo (2004) and (2008), Poland, Iraq and the Czech Republic visiting Minnesota troops.

He also welcomed Mexican President Vicente Fox in 2004 in an effort to strengthen trade. The president announced that his country would open a consulate in Minnesota the next year, removing the need for Mexican residents in the state to travel to Chicago for identification papers and other materials. Early in 2006, after issuing a study that estimated the cost of illegal immigration to the state as approximately $188 million, Pawlenty announced a program for reforming the way the state deals with persons who are in the United States illegally. Pawlenty noted the economic benefit does not justify the illegal behavior. By mid-year he sent Minnesota National Guardsmen to the U.S.-Mexico border at the request of the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Second term

Main article: Minnesota gubernatorial election, 2006

In Pawlenty's second term, he dedicated the state's World War II Veterans Memorial on June 9, 2007

Pawlenty accepted the Republican party endorsement for re-election in 2006. He ran on conservative issues, though he was criticized by conservatives on funding issues including two stadium bills for the Gophers and Minnesota Twins, and transportation bonding which included the Northstar commuter rail line.

The 2006 gubernatorial race included Pawlenty's own DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch, Peter Hutchinson of the Independence Party, and Ken Pentel of the Green Party in the November 7 general election. Pawlenty won, defeating Hatch by a margin of 1%, though both the state House and Senate gained DFL majority.

Transportation

In April 2008 during the budget bonding bill signing, Pawlenty used his line-item veto on $70 million pledged toward the building of the Central Corridor light-rail project, intended to connect Minneapolis and Saint Paul. In vetoing the expenditure, Pawlenty did not consult Peter Bell, head of the Metro Council and project leader. Pawlenty stated that he vetoed the bill in order to send a message to the Legislature, which had exceeded his initial budget request, that they needed to "stay focused, be fiscally disciplined, set priorities and solve this budget crisis in a fiscally disciplined way." Pawlenty however was supportive of the project and had requested the money in the bonding bill he submitted to the Minnesota State Legislature. The veto disappointed some of Minnesota's congressional representatives in Washington, including Minnesota's Republican Senator Norm Coleman, who pledged to "raise my voice as strong as I can, as loud as I can. The federal commitment is there." Though Pawlenty's veto might have delayed the ability of the state to receive federal matching funds for the project, Bell said the project was not derailed. The Central Corridor funding issue was resolved on May 19, 2008 with the state pledging its original amount towards the project after legislators compromised with Pawlenty's budget requests.

There were Republican state legislators who supported other cuts of the bonding bill, including Doug Magnus, the ranking Republican on the House Transportation Finance Division, who praised Pawlenty's "fiscal responsibility." Critics, including Chris Coleman, Mayor of Saint Paul, called Pawlenty's veto "political gamesmanship," seeing the move as retribution for the Legislature's successful override of Pawlenty's veto of a transportation bonding bill. They noted cuts overwhelmingly targeted Democratic districts, and Democratic stronghold Saint Paul most heavily.

Future

See also: Politics of Minnesota

Governor Pawlenty has not yet decided whether or not to seek a third term in 2010, which is allowed under Minnesota law. Beginning in 2005, he was informally suggested by the press as a potential candidate for President. When formally announcing his candidacy for a second term as Governor of Minnesota on May 31, 2006, Pawlenty said, "As to my future, if I run for governor and win, I will serve out my term for four years as governor." On January 15, 2007, after being re-elected, Pawlenty said, "I am committed to serving out my term as governor. That's what I am going to do."

In January 2008 the Minneapolis Star Tribune suggested Pawlenty's renewed focus on his proposed immigration reform plans may be politically motivated as counter-balance to McCain's less favorable guest worker program. That month it was announced that Pawlenty would be serving in a lead role for McCain as a national co-chair of his presidential exploratory committee which led to Pawlenty becoming co-chairman of McCain's campaign (along with Phil Gramm and Tom Loeffler).

He was just tapped as the VP candidate for McCain's campaign.

Electoral history

Minnesota Gubernatorial Election 2002

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Tim Pawlenty	997,907	44.4
	Democratic	Roger Moe	819,428	37.2
	Independence	Tim Penny	364,069	16.4
	Green	Ken Pentel	50,520	2.5

Minnesota Gubernatorial Election 2006

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Republican	Tim Pawlenty (Incumbent)	1,028,568	46.7	+2.3
	Democratic	Mike Hatch	1,007,460	45.7
	Independence	Peter Hutchinson	141,735	6.4

External links

• Minnesota Office of the Governor Tim Pawlenty official state site
• Tim Pawlenty at Minnesota Legislators Past & Present
• National Governors Association - Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty biography
• Follow the Money - Tim Pawlenty & Carol Molnau 2006 campaign contributions
• On the Issues - Tim Pawlenty issue positions and quotes
• Project Vote Smart - Governor Tim Pawlenty (MN) profile
• Governor Pawlenty official campaign site
• Campaign 2002 - Minnesota Governor Minnesota Public Radio
• Campaign 2006 - Tim Pawlenty Minnesota Public Radio

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