Gov. Pawlenty's Recipe for Bad Government

Category: Tim Pawlenty

by Dave Mindeman

The archival records of Governor Tim Pawlenty may not create huge news stories but they are certainly going to give the state a lot of extra space to utilize.

With our Governor, its not what you know that is important....it is what you don't know.

As the Star Tribune indicated in its July 5th story, Pawlenty has archived very little of his records. He may be holding it back to dump when he leaves office, but according to his interpretation of what's important, I doubt there will be a lot to sift through.

The Governor's definition of what should be preserved:

Pawlenty's administration has cited a 40-year-old Minnesota Supreme Court decision to justify retaining only records of final decisions -- not the e-mails or paperwork that cast light on how decisions were made.

Under that criteria, the I-35 Bridge exchanges with MnDOT would have been eliminated if legal challenges from victims had not forced their preservations.

Other things in Pawlenty's tenure will get little sunlight as well. The Iron Range mining connection to mesothelioma that came out during the Mandernach Health Dept. controversy. How much of that material is missing? Will lawsuits preserve that as well?

Or, how about the flooding in southeast Minnesota? Has the state responded properly? How were decisions derived at?

Do the citizens of Minnesota have a right to see how their government determines policy and how their money is spent?

Governor Pawlenty seems to think that he gets to decide what you should know. Sounds like a recipe for bad government to me.