It’s not likely Minnesota taxpayers could follow the political theatrics of the last few days between Gov. Mark Dayton and GOP House Speaker Kurt Daudt on a special session, but even if they could, the scenario falls short of even mediocre governance.

Unfortunately for all Minnesotans, negotiations between Dayton and Daudt broke down Friday. There will be no special session. We give Dayton credit for trying to lead the charge for a special session that, with tax and bonding bills and relief from health insurance rates, would benefit Minnesotans around the state.

We give Speaker Daudt some credit for going along and a willingness to let the experts of his caucus work with Dayton’s commissioners to hammer out the details. Agreement on these critical issues seemed very close at one point.

But as letters between Daudt and Dayton were exchanged, the tone seemed to deteriorate to adversarial. Dayton described Daudt as out of the loop as he was attending a national legislative conference in the Virgin Islands. Incidentally, so was DFL Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk.

Daudt accused Dayton of changing details of bonding and the tax bills, saying that was outside of what the two parties and their surrogates had agreed to at a meeting Dec. 2. Dayton disagreed with that assessment.

Dayton says he hasn’t heard from Daudt for weeks and more than one source says there’s been a lull in Daudt speaking about proposals to House GOP bonding committee chair Paul Torkelson. One DFLer told The Free Press Torkelson seemed open to a bonding compromise, but apparently Daudt wasn’t available to discuss it for several weeks and Torkelson had no authority to negotiate. Daudt denies that’s the case.

Dayton could have gotten agreement had he not added so many new proposals to the bonding plan that was passed by a bipartisan Legislature last year. Daudt seemed to be disagreeing on points that were minor enough to be negotiated or fixed later.

Both parties say their experts have been working diligently to come to agreement over the last several days and weeks. And now, it seems, to no avail.

Dayton, Daudt and new House Minority Leader Melissa Hortman have launched a bit of a blame game on both sides. Again, it’s difficult for taxpayers to see who is at fault, and that exercise might be fruitless anyway.

The next best hope was for all parties to agree to a special session soon to deal with just the health insurance rate issue, where there seems to be a little more agreement and less animosity. But that’s not going to happen either.

We ask an important question of both sides: “How will Minnesotans lose if you accept your opponents’ proposal as is?”

The correct answer is: “They wouldn’t.” Everyone would win. But now, it appears, everyone will lose.

— Mankato Free Press, Dec. 18