After 10 years is the House poised to pass a Twins stadium bill?

It sure looks like it. Of course it has to get by the tax committee first. And even opponents there say they probably don't have the votes to stop it. MPR's Tom Scheck has the story:

Rep. Ann Lenczewski, DFL-Bloomington, says lawmakers from Hennepin County are far outnumbered by legislators from other areas, which makes her pessimistic about blocking the stadium proposal.

"It makes 86 counties' legislators not accountable for this vote. They get to have a stadium, and they get to tax someone that they don't represent to build it. So their constituents get a stadium and don't have to contribute to it," said Lenczewski.

Another factor that is playing into the debate is stadium fatigue. In other words, people are just plain tired of hearing about it. The Star Tribune has this:

"I fear this will pass," said Dann Dobson, a prominent stadium opponent who heads the No Stadium Tax Coalition.

"People have gotten burned out," Dobson said as he watched Wednesday's four-hour hearing. "People have been beaten into submission after nine years."

Seven or eight years ago stadium opponents were telling Capitol reporters that the day would come when pro-staium forces would succeed because people would become tired of hearing about it.Of course the Twins say the reason opposition seems to be fading is because this is the best proposal they've offered.

Is there some Pogemiller fatigue in the Senate? The Senate defeated DFL Sen. Larry Pogemiller's tax plan Wednesday. MPR's Laura McCallum says it was the bill's content, not the author, that torpedoed the plan:

Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, says she voted against the bill because she didn't like Pogemiller's two revenue raisers.

"It seemed to me that with the amount of surplus that we had, that this was a year of giving tax relief and not of increasing taxes, and that occurred in two places in the bill," said Rest. Five other Democrats joined Rest and all Senate Republicans in voting against the bill.

Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, argued against the bill, saying Minnesota taxes are high enough. He says state revenues are going up and businesses are expanding.

"Things are really going good. Why do we want to talk about anything that is increasing taxes in Minnesota?" Day asked.

Especially in an election year, someone might have said.

Gas prices are up again. When I drove in this morning I saw a sign for $2.85 per gallon. I filled up yesterday for 2.76 per. No sooner had I asked yesterday whether anyone had correlated the price of gas with the president's approval rating than David Kirchner answered. It's in the comment yesterday, but here's the link. And if you think that's cool, check out Kirchner's blog for more advanced number crunching.