Howes Predicts Pawlenty Will Win Court Challenge

State Representative Larry Howes feels Governor Pawlenty will win the court challenge of his budgets cuts. The Governor made $2.7 billion in cuts last spring, without legislative approval, using something called unallotment.

A lower court ruled the Governor did not have the authority to cut a $5.5 million dollar nutrition program for the poor, thus jeopardizing the larger package of cuts.

Howes says unallotment is constitutional, so all the Governor would have to do is wait until after the current biennium is over to make the cuts.

Attorney Galen Robinson, who won the lower court victory, says the Governor created the problem by signing a package of spending bills followed by a veto of a tax plan that would have paid for them.