Minnesota's legislative session ended with the governor refusing to sign the legislature's budget bills and swearing to use unilateral unallotment to balance the budget. Law professor David Schulz think the governor's on precarious legal footing:
First, it is unlikely that the original intent of the Legislature was
to give the governor this broad of a power to unallot. Its original
passage was to give the governor power to address small budgetary
shortfalls, not make cuts that amount to major programmatic changes.
Second, there is a basic rule in law regarding statutory
interpretation. One should interpret laws to avoid absurd results and
avoid conflicts with other laws. Here, if one accepts the governor's
reading of unallotment, it would mean he alone has the power to change
fiscal priorities for the state or that he could use this power to
negate laws establishing statutory authorized policies. One result is
absurd; the other produces a conflict in the laws.
Read more at Minnpost.
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