Without secrecy, governor says, state would've shut down.

Byline: Kevin Featherly

Had negotiators operated transparently in the run up to last month's one-day special session, the government would have shut down.

That's according to Gov. Tim Walz, who gave the keynote speech Tuesday during the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists' annual banquet.

In a question-and-answer session after his talk, the governor fielded some tough questions about his participation in the so-called "tribunal" a group composed of Walz, House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, and Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa.

The group had power to decide which provisions stayed in and which came out of final budget bills.

In the session's final six days, negotiators fell into a "cone of silence," giving reporters virtually no information on the status of negotiations. Once the session ended with no state budget, the trio went behind closed doors with conferees, commissioners and staff to mediate final contents of the various budget bills.

While that undoubtedly generated compromise, it also led to some baffling results. A high-profile insulin bill, which would make the life-saving diabetes drug more readily available to patients, disappeared without explanation. That's despite GOP and DFL consensus going into the tribunal sessions.

Similarly, a measure to regulate law enforcement's use of drones, which also had GOP and DFL support, was dead before the public safety bill emerged from behind closed doors.

Rep. Carlos Mariani, DFL-St. Paul, was the House co-chair for the Public Safety conference committee. Asked last week about the drone provisions, Mariani acknowledged the issue had support from both housesthough there were minor differences to work out. Its primary opponent was Walz himself.

"The governor hated it," Mariani said.

Still, Mariani stopped short of condemning the closed-door process. Without it, he said, it was unlikely enough progress would have been made to push a final public safety/judiciary bill across the finish line.

Rep. Nick Zerwas, R-Elk River, who was privy to late negotiations because of his status as a public safety conferee, is less sanguine. He said he personally is aware of several instances where Walz unilaterally extracted policy provisions from bills. To Zerwas, that's the equivalent of an unconstitutional line-item veto over policy.

Capitol observers from both parties have criticized the end-game secrecy. Yet without it, Walz asserted Tuesday, 2019 would have brought yet...