Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s budget balancing actions this past session are being challenged in court. A group of elderly and disabled people who receive money from a food program that was unalloted by the governor are suing to restore funding for their program.

Lawyers for both the governor and the plaintiffs are saying the judge’s decision could have a dramatic effect on them.

But the governor’s actions are worth a challenge to settle the procedural questions the governor raised with his unilateral decisions.

As you recall, after the state Legislature passed spending and tax bills last session, the governor signed all of them except the tax bill that was designed to pay for the deficit. The governor then used the executive power of unallotment to cut programs on his own, without involving the Legislature.

The power of unallotment has been used in the past when the state’s budget nears the end of the biennium and appears to be heading for a deficit. It has been considered an emergency power to keep the state from running into a deficit.

Pawlenty used unallotment at the beginning of the biennium to fix a problem he helped create by vetoing the tax bill, instead of calling the Legislature into special session.

We say, let the judge decide if he acted properly.

— The Journal of New Ulm, Nov. 18