Political News:
John Tuma: The Drama Unfolds
11/22/10
”Of a romantic and jovial disposition, he was not at all averse to playing the part assigned him in this little drama.”
- Dr. William Folwell*
As a record number of freshmen legislators find their way to St. Paul for the beginning of the session in January, it is unlikely any will wonder why the Capitol is in St. Paul. As the new senators recline in their distinguished seats in Committee Room 112 of the Capitol building, they may take note of the odd portrait of the “romantic and jovial” full-bearded fur trader displayed prominently over the committee chair’s seat and wonder “who is that guy.” As the bold new committee structure of the new House and Senate Republican majorities takes shape and committee chairs have been designated, it might be wise for these freshmen legislators to take note of the history behind our Capitol being in St. Paul and the portrait in Room 112. Within this story lies the parable of the power of the chair in the legislative process.
The quote above from the renowned Minnesota historian Dr. William Folwell describes the role played in 1857 by fur trader and territorial legislator Joseph Rolette Jr. in preventing the removal of the state capitol from St. Paul to St. Peter. As our territorial government proceeded toward statehood, several of the agricultural-minded interests wanted the state capitol in a location more central to the prairie. Another reason for the interest in moving the state capitol to St. Peter was that several legislators, the appointed governor, and some prominent financiers had speculated on land around the new community of St. Peter. Their vision was to create a gateway community to the agricultural rich farmland of the western prairies and maybe even profit a little from the deal, too. What better way to establish St. Peter as the new center of the state than to make it the state capitol?
On the other hand, the fur trading interests that dominated Minnesota’s history to that date had built their empire around Fort Snelling and later St. Paul. At the time of the territorial government, huge caravans of ox carts would rumble and squeak their way down to St. Paul each summer from the Red River Valley, laden with fur bound for the East Coast. The old fraternity of fur traders had invested heavily in St. Paul as remaining the hub of transportation and commerce in the new state. St. Paul had always maintained an advantage as a commercial center because it was fortunate enough to be perfectly situated as the northern terminal of the region’s central highway: the mighty Mississippi. With the maturing of the railroad, such geographical advantages were no longer as important. Therefore, removal of the state capitol to St. Peter would have greatly harmed the business interests in St. Paul.
In the middle of this struggle for dominance, the flamboyant Joseph Rolette Jr. was not at all “averse to playing the part assigned him.” Tightly connected to the fur trading interest, the junior Rolette was the son of the former head of the once important regional fur trading post at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. The senior Rolette invested heavily in the continued growth of the fur industry prior to its collapse in the 1830s, when the lords and ladies of Europe took a fancy to silk as opposed to beaver fur felt for their grand hats. Soon the senior Rolette would die broke and destitute. To add insult to injury, his wife married his second-in-command at the trading post, Hercules Dousman. The keen investments Dousman made in property along the Mississippi and strategic alliances allowed him to capture a significant portion of the commerce on the upper Mississippi in this time of tumultuous change, making him one of the richest men in the region.
Joseph Rolette Jr. benefited from his mother’s new wealth by obtaining the best education offered in Montréal, which was still a cultural center in fur traders’ minds even though it had lost most of its trade from the upper Mississippi River region. Upon his return from schooling, his stepfather secured for him a position as one of the key trading partners with the Metis Nation that then dominated the Red River Valley. As Minnesota became a territory, the well-educated and well-connected Rolette was an obvious choice as a legislator to represent the far-flung Metis tribes of the Red River Valley. Joseph relished his image as a rough-and-tumble fur trader, donning a thick beard and dressing as if he were going to sit at a council with the local Dakota tribes regaled in his colorful attire. Nonetheless, Rolette’s education didn’t go unnoticed in the territorial legislature, where he became chairman of the Revisor Committee. During the territorial days this was the last committee a bill went through before it was sent to its final vote on the floor of the unicameral body, in order to make sure that the wording was appropriate for the statutes. Therefore, the final committee stop for the St. Peter bill in 1857 was Rolette’s committee.
Now here’s an essential lesson you need to know about legislative bills. They are not just a concept floating around the legislative chamber like a ghost waiting to be written down upon their final vote. They are a physical legal document that actually can be possessed. It is important to know that in most legislative bodies the committee chair is actually given physical possession of that legal document when it is so referred to the chair’s committee. If the chair does not like that particular physical document he or she can hide it away in his or her desk and never take action on it. Nonetheless, the full body does have the power to make a chair produce that document if they have the votes on the floor, for the purpose of sending it someplace else for further action or for the full floor to take possession of it for final action.
Wily old Rolette knew these facts to be true and he knew the votes were against him on the floor if the body were to vote to demand him to produce the St. Peter capitol bill. So to thwart the effort, the resourceful chair promptly slipped the physical document we call “the bill” into his pocket and disappeared. The St. Peter syndicate cried foul, calling it a conspiracy by the fur trading business interests of St. Paul. As legend has it, Rolette gambled away the time with some of his St. Paul cronies in the back room of a hotel for a week, waiting for the session to end while the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Legislature scoured the streets of St. Paul looking to bring Rolette back to deliver the bill for final action, where it was sure to have passed.
The Legislature did pass a copy of the original bill, but the courts later ruled that this was not a legal action by the Legislature because it was not the actual physical document that was still rightfully in the possession of the committee chair. As a result, the state capitol remains to this day in the great city of St. Paul.
The moral of the story is there are many ways a chair can put an end to a bill in his or her possession. Disappearing with the bill is a drastic measure and as time has passed, stopping a bill’s progress has become a much more refined art. Nonetheless, the physical possession of the bill by a chair is still the procedural tool from which the power of the chair over legislation is derived. In addition to physically controlling the bills referred to them, the committee chair plays a critical role for the Legislature by setting the agenda in their subject area, working with fellow legislators to shape compromises, and typically being one of the key negotiators in conference committees and with the governor’s office. That is why this week most Capitol observers were anxious to see how the new Republican majorities in both bodies were going to reshape the committee structure and who would be assigned the duty of chairmanships. The press conferences on Tuesday to announce committee structure and on Wednesday to announce the chairs for the upcoming session were well attended as a result.
The new Republican majorities have promised significant reduction in the number of committees along with greater transparency and linkage between bodies. Most Capitol observers, regardless of their party affiliation, agreed that the restructuring of the committees announced this week by the new Republican majorities was historic and for the most part accomplished the streamlining, transparency, and linkage goals they set.
Therefore, with fewer committees and better alignment, it will make tracking legislation easier and more understandable for the general public (and even for beleaguered lobbyists). What the new chairs will find out, however, is that it will be a little bit more difficult to kill a bill. Often a chair will give a bill a hearing simply to appease the bill author or interest group, knowing full well that the bill is destined to be lost in the maze of the ongoing committee process without anybody clearly being accountable. The new structure does not guarantee good results but on its face it may make accountability easier. There are certainly other ways to avoid accountability in the legislative process, but it is a fair assessment to say that the Republicans’ new streamlined process will have the potential of being more transparent and accountable.
Unfortunately, the one area where there is not a clear flow of how the accounts and bills will be brought together is in the committees that have primary jurisdiction in the area of energy and environment. The House has a committee responsible for environment and energy titled “House Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee.” On the other hand, the Senate has two separate committees, titled “Senate Energy, Utilities and Telecom Budget and Policy” and “Senate Environment and Natural Resources Budget and Policy.” Complicating matters, the House has a specific subcommittee of the House Government Finance Committee that is responsible for the appropriation of all of the Legacy Amendment accounts. One would assume the three Legacy accounts covering water, land and habitat, and parks and trails will be under the jurisdiction of the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Budget and Policy Committee. Therefore, the new structure in and of itself does not make tracking environment and energy bills any easier.
The chairs appointed to the key committees covering environment and energy for the most part have worked well with the environment and conservation communities. There are definitely some challenges we face with some of the assignments, but the real challenge is the fact that the budget deficit is in the neighborhood of 20 percent of the whole state budget for the next budget cycle. The key chairs on environment and conservation issues for the next session will be:
Senate Capital Investments – Dave Senjem (29-Rochester)
House Capital Investments – Larry Howes (4B- Walker)
Senate Energy, Utilities and Telecom Budget and Policy – Sen. Julie Rosen (24-Fairmont)
Senate Environment and Natural Resources Budget and Policy – Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen (11-Alexandria)
House Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance – Rep. Tom Hackbarth (48A- Cedar)
House State Government Finance – Rep. Denny McNamara (57B-Hastings)
House State Government Finance Legacy Funding Division – Dean Urdahl (18B – Grove City)
To discover more about the backgrounds of these individuals, here is a link to the legislative website where you can dig into some of their backgrounds and past work at the Legislature:
http://www.leg.state.mn.us/ We will strive to keep you informed as these chairs play the parts assigned them in this little drama we call the 2011 Legislative Session – interestingly enough, a drama to be played out in St. Paul because of the creative work of one wily legislative chair named Joseph Rolette Jr.
* A History of Minnesota, by William Watts Folwell, The Minnesota History Society, 1956, 1: 384-386. As repeated in Making Minnesota Territory 1847-1858, Anne R. Kaplan and Marilyn Ziebarth editors, in the story “The Power All Whiteness,” by Bruce M. White, Minnesota Historical Press, 1999, page 41.
