There will be a heavyweight championship battle for the ages in a Minnesota Capitol courtroom on Monday.

In one corner: Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Mark Dayton, who vetoed funding for the Minnesota House and Senate for the next two years. In the other: the Republican-led Minnesota Legislature, which scored a win in district court when a judge declared the vetoes unconstitutional.

Representing them are two attorneys with lots of wins on their records. The lawyers — former Supreme Court Justice Sam Hanson and powerhouse litigator Doug Kelley — spent the summer trading cordial, professional jabs, but both make clear they are ready to land that knockout punch when they go before the Minnesota Supreme Court on Monday morning.

The case — known formally as the Ninetieth Minnesota State Senate and the Ninetieth Minnesota State House of Representatives vs. Mark B. Dayton, in his official capacity as governor of the State of Minnesota — will feature the Minnesota Constitution, the most powerful people in Minnesota and the most powerful court in the state.

How it is decided could affect the power of governors and strategies of Legislatures for years to come.

So crucial is the case that Dayton plans to watch Monday’s oral arguments from the Supreme Court courtroom and the court has permitted media to livestream the action so those not in the courtroom can watch. It is the only case to merit high court oral arguments in August, typically a behind-the-scenes work month for the Supreme Court.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL ARGUMENTS

Over the past month, both sides have made their arguments to the court in more than 100 pages of briefs. They have cited the Federalist Papers, cases from West Virginia, Washington state, Texas, Kentucky and Guam, and courts decisions from Minnesota going back nearly a century.

The thrust of the two sides’ arguments rest in the Minnesota Constitution.

The Legislature claims the court should attend to the Constitution’s separation-of-powers clause.

“The powers of government shall be divided into three distinct departments: legislative, executive and judicial. No person or persons belonging to or constituting one of these departments shall exercise any of the powers properly belonging to either of the others except in the instances expressly provided in this constitution,” reads Article III, Section 1 of the state’s founding document.

In the Legislature’s brief to the court, citations of that constitutional section appear so often that the table of contents marks it with “passim,” a Latin term to note lots and lots of mentions.

Essentially, the argument goes, when Dayton line-item vetoed the Legislature’s two-year budget in May, it crossed the line into exercising “the powers properly belonging” to the Legislature.

Last month, a Ramsey County District Court judge agreed.

“As a result of violating the Separation of Powers

clause of the Minnesota Constitution, the governor’s line-item vetoes are unconstitutional, null, and void,” Judge John Guthmann wrote in his July order.

Dayton and his attorneys say that is a misreading of the governor’s action — and the constitutional allocation of power. Look at Article IV, Section 23, the governor advised the court. Related Articles Early voting begins in Minnesota: Things to know

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“If a bill presented to the governor contains several items of appropriation of money, he may veto one or more of the items while approving the bill. At the time he signs the bill the governor shall append to it a statement of the items he vetoes and the vetoed items shall not take effect,” that section reads.

Therefore, the argument goes, the governor had a constitutional ability to nix the $130 million worth of funding for the Legislature. The governor’s brief to the high court cites the veto section of the constitution so much that it gets the “passim” mark.

“The Minnesota Constitution does not exempt legislative self-appropriations from the governor’s line item veto power,” the governor’s brief to the Supreme Court says.

“He used a tool that was expressly provided to him by the Minnesota Constitution,” the governor’s reply brief says.

DID VETOES ‘ABOLISH’ LEGISLATURE?

Key to the Legislature’s arguments: Dayton’s vetoes of legislative funding “abolished” the Legislature.

“The governor understood (the veto) would put the Legislature out of business for the next two years unless it bent to his will,” its brief said. “By depriving the Legislature of funding, the governor has prevented the Legislature from performing its core functions.”

While the district court agreed with that line of reasoning, the governor does not.

After the veto, the Legislature could seek and has sought funding to allow it to continue the business of researching and drafting legislation, as well as ancillary tasks.

“A Senate budget for the 2016-17 biennium identifies expenditures of $1,000 for dry cleaning, $4,000 for membership fees, $30,000 for water coolers and $200,000 for out-of-state travel,” the governor’s brief said.

In any case, the same district court that found the governor’s veto of the Legislature’s funding unconstitutional in July agreed with the governor and the Legislature in June that the lawmakers’ complete 2017 budget needs should be fulfilled while the suit over the budget drags on.

DOES MOTIVATION MATTER?

Worth noting: the attorneys also debating in their submitted materials whether Dayton’s motivation for penning the line-item vetoes matters.

Dayton’s attorneys wrote no mind-reading of a governor’s motivation is needed or even permitted. Past cases found that vetoes, if constitutional, are vetoes no matter what was behind the action.

The district court and the Legislature are wrong to question Dayton’s motivation — which, Dayton has said, were to compel the Legislature to rethink policy provisions in the state’s massive budget and to react to a “poison pill” the Legislature inserted into a tax bill — the governor’s side argues.

But motivation is important to the intent and the original language of the constitutional veto, the Legislature’s attorneys retort.

“The original language of the line-item veto power explicitly requires the governor ‘object’ to the vetoed item of appropriation,” their brief says. “While the governor may object to the unrelated policy legislation, he has no objection to the vetoed legislative appropriation.”

At 9 a.m. Monday in the recently restored Minnesota Capitol, the seven-member state Supreme Court will dive into all these issues — and bring new ones to light. It is unclear when they will make their final decision.