Legal wrangling continues this week with the Minnesota Supreme Court trying to determine exactly how long the legislature can continue operating without funding that Governor Mark Dayton vetoed. Hamline University Professor David Schultz says he thinks the high court was hoping by ordering mediation that it would extract itself from resolving the dispute. But he says, “Now, short of them just saying, ‘No, we’re serious. We’re not gonna step into this matter and resolve it,’ I think the court has to make some tough choices regarding who’s right, who’s wrong — that is, legislature versus governor — and what the court does next.”
Schultz predicts the high court will take “baby steps,” doing the least amount without issuing a full-blown decision. Schultz says he thinks the justices are secretly hoping the legislature can “muddle through” until February 20th when the legislature goes back into session. “The first thing it could do is restore its own funding,” he says. “It can override the governor’s veto at that point, and then the court doesn’t have to resolve the matter. And that’s what I secretly think the court is hoping will happen.”
More in this interview with MNN’s Bill Werner: