Timothy James Pawlenty (; born November 27, 1960) is an American businessman and politician who is president and CEO of Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington, D.C.-based industry advocacy group. He was a Republican politician who served as the 39th Governor of Minnesota (2003-2011). He previously served in the Minnesota House of Representatives (1993-2003), where he was majority leader for two terms.

Pawlenty was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Eugene Joseph Pawlenty, and his wife, Virginia Frances (nee Oldenburg). His father, who drove a milk delivery truck, was of Polish descent, while his mother was of German ancestry. His mother died of cancer when he was 16. Pawlenty grew up in South St. Paul, where he played ice hockey on his high school's junior varsity squad.  Intending to become a dentist, Pawlenty enrolled in the University of Minnesota, the only one in his family to go beyond high school. However, he changed his plans and spent the summers of 1980 and 1982 working as an intern at the office of U.S. Senator David Durenberger. In 1983, he graduated with a B.A. in political science. He received a Juris Doctor from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1986. While in law school, he met wife, Mary Anderson, whom he married in 1987.  Pawlenty first worked as a labor law attorney at the firm Rider Bennett (later Rider, Bennett, Egan & Arundel), where he had interned while a law student. He later became vice president of a software as a service company, Wizmo Inc.  Having moved to Eagan, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis - Saint Paul, Pawlenty was appointed to the city's Planning Commission by Mayor Vic Ellison. One year later, at age 28, he was elected to the City Council.  Pawlenty entered state politics in 1990 as a campaign advisor for Jon Grunseth's losing bid for Minnesota governor. After Pawlenty himself became governor, he appointed Grunseth's ex-wife, Vicky Tigwell, to the board of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, an action which became an ethics and accountability issue in 2003.  Pawlenty was elected in 2002 on a platform of balancing the state's budget without raising taxes. He emphasized his campaign and first term with the Taxpayers League of Minnesota slogan "no new taxes." His governorship was characterized by a historically low rate of spending growth. According to the Minnesota Management and Budget Department, general-fund expenditures from 2004 to 2011 increased an average of 3.5 percent per two-year term, compared to an average of 21.1 percent from 1960 to 2003 (these numbers, however, are not inflation-adjusted). University of Minnesota political science professor Larry Jacobs said that slowing down state spending and opposing tax increases were the "signature issue" of Pawlenty's governorship.  In his first year as governor, Pawlenty inherited a projected two-year budget deficit of $4.3 billion, the largest in Minnesota's history. After a contentious budget session with a Democrat-controlled Senate, he signed a package of fee increases, spending reductions, and government reorganization which eliminated the deficit. The budget reduced the rate of funding increases for state services, including transportation, social services, and welfare. It also enacted a perennial proposal to restructure city aid based on immediate need, rather than historical factors. In negotiations the governor agreed to several compromises, abandoning a desired public employee wage freeze and property tax restrictions.  During his second term, Pawlenty erased a $2.7-billion deficit by cutting spending, shifting payments, and using one-time federal stimulus money. His final budget (2010-2011) was the state's first two-year period since 1960 in which net government expenditures decreased. Pawlenty has claimed this as "the first time in 150 years" that spending has been cut, but fact-checkers have disputed this claim as no public budget records prior to 1960 are known to exist.  Pawlenty has been criticized by some for providing a short-term budget solution but coming up short in his long-term strategy as governor. The state department of Management and Budget reports that the two-year budget starting in July 2011 is projected to come up $4.4 billion short. Former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson, a Republican, criticized Pawlenty's budget strategy: he borrowed more than $1 billion from the tobacco settlement (money set aside for health care), borrowed more than $1.4 billion from K-12 education funding, borrowed more than $400 [million] from the Health Care Access Fund for low-income families, among other short-term shifts in accounting. The result was a $5-billion deficit, the seventh largest in the United States. Minnesota property taxes rose $2.5 billion, more than the previous 16 years combined, and Moody's lowered the state's bond rating. Carlson told Time, "I don't think any governor has left behind a worse financial mess than he [Pawlenty] has." Pawlenty responded, "My friend governor Arne Carlson is, of course, now an Obama and John Kerry supporter."  While Pawlenty said he was "confident" in his right to use unallotment, the Minnesota Supreme Court ultimately decided against him, voting 4 to 3 in a decision in May 2010. His budget had been the subject of a lawsuit in Ramsey County District Court, which was decided against him. Judge Kathleen Gearin decided Pawlenty exceeded his constitutional authority in making unilateral spending cuts to a $5.3-million special dietary program that he had unalloted. Attorney David Lillehaug said initially, "This is, I don't think it's understating this to say, this is one of the most important court cases in Minnesota legal history." Pawlenty announced the following day that he would appeal; he filed his defense in February, and arguments were heard on March 15. In May, the Supreme Court affirmed Judge Gearin, deciding that "Because the legislative and executive branches never enacted a balanced budget for the 2010-2011 biennium, use of the unallotment power to address the unresolved deficit exceeded the authority granted to the executive branch by the statute". Pawlenty responded:  I will fight to reduce spending and taxes in Minnesota and that battle continues. My commitment to the people of Minnesota remains the same: we will balance the budget without raising taxes.  After the court ruling, as the 2010 legislative session drew to a close, Pawlenty vetoed a budget which would fix a $2.9-billion deficit by adding a new tax bracket for six-figure incomes. In response to the proposal, he criticized Democrats for attempting to raise taxes in the midst of an extremely difficult economic situation. Eventually, due in part to the efforts of House Speaker Margaret Kelliher, who was running for the 2010 Democratic nomination for governor of Minnesota, the General Assembly passed legislation approving nearly all the original unallotments.

who did he work with?
However, he changed his plans and spent the summers of 1980 and 1982 working as an intern at the office of U.S. Senator David Durenberger.