Larry Haws loves portraying himself as a sensible moderate who works well across party lines. To be fair, he worked with Dan Severson to get a good veterans bill passed in 2007. After that, Haws’ record is thin on centrism. This 2007 Minnesota Chamber of Commerce voting summary tells a much different story.

One of the things that the Minnesota Chamber rated as important was S.F. 2096, the Energy Omnibus Finance Bill. Joyce Peppin’s amendment would’ve eliminated the statewide moratorium on building nuclear power plants. Rep. Haws voted against the amendment, meaning he voted against a form of energy that emits no greenhouse gases and that is a cheap form of elecity generation.

Rep. Haws voted for the mammoth tax increase known as the Transportation Bill. Here’s what that bill included:

• 5 cent gas tax increase
• allowed for a 2.5 cent gas tax surcharge to finance the debt service of bonds
• a license tab fee increase
• authority to impose a one-half cent sales tax to be divided between roads and transit in the seven-county metro area
• authority for greater Minnesota counties to impose a half-cent sales tax
• authority for all counties to impose a $5 or $10 wheelage tax.

Had the Transportation Bill just raised the gas tax, I suspect the bill would’ve garnered substantial bipartisan support. Let’s remember that this is the bill that gave us this great Steve Murphy quote:

“I’m not trying to fool anybody,” said Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, sponsor of the measure that would increase funding for roads and transit by $1.5 billion a year once it was fully implemented in the next decade. “There’s a lot of taxes in this bill.”

Rep. Haws, (Moderate-DFL), voted for the bill’s final passage, then voted to override Gov. Pawlenty’s veto.

We also know that Rep. Haws supported an inferior E-12 Education bill. The DFL bill that passed and got signed into law in 2007 increased education funding from $4,974 per student in 2007 to $5,074 in 2008 and to $5,124 in 2009. By contrast, HF2029 would’ve increased E-12 education funding from $4,974 per student in 2007 to $5,350 in 2008 to $5,580 in 2009.

Had HF2029 passed in 2007, alot of the school referenda wouldn’t have been needed last November. That, in turn, would’ve saved alot of people alot of money in property taxes.

Almost a year ago, Rep. Haws participated in the League of Women’s Voters Education Forum, which I posted about here. During part of the discussion, Rep. Steve Gottwalt said that schools had to do a better job setting priorities on what they spent their money on. Rep. Haws looked startled at first, then recovering to say “Maybe we do need to prioritize.”

I’m betting that most people would be appalled to find out that their legislator admitted that he hadn’t considered prioritizing spending an important part of his job. Thoughtful legislators think of government spending through the lens of what are the taxpayers getting for their investment and through the lens of what impact their decisions will have on their constituents’ prosperity.

Apparently, that didn’t enter Rep. Haws’ thought process. I’ll guarantee that setting sensible spending priorities would’ve been Josh Behling’s priority.

Technorati: Larry Haws, Tax Increases, Fiscal Restraint, Property Taxes, School Referenda, Nuclear Power, Steve Gottwalt, Josh Behling, Election 2008