DFL leaders of the Minnesota Senate dodged the abortion issue Monday night as they passed a funding bill without health and human services language.

The debate on the only budget bill of the session was delayed much of the day as abortion opponents tried to round up enough votes to keep the language off the bill. At issue is language supported by the state's largest anti-abortion group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life and added to the funding bill in the House. It would challenge a 1995 state Supreme Court decision that says state subsidized health insurance must fund abortions for low income women.

As MPR's Tim Pugmire reported, the bill's author, St. Paul DFLer Dick Cohen, didn't allow the abortion debate to materialize in the Senate:

"The best way to handle this is to do everything on the human service side in one bill," Cohen said. "So, I'm asking this motion to delete the human service sections of this bill."

Cohen's move drew an angry response from several Republicans. Sen. Tom Neuville, R-Northfield, was incensed.

"Now we're here with supposedly a finance bill, and you know there's a pro-life amendment coming, and so you strip out the part that we'd amend it to," Neuville said. "Not only don't you have any leadership, not only don't you have any direction, now you don't have any courage."

DFL Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson says the Senate will vote on the human services funding bill, and presumably the abortion amendments before the session ends. But obviously there's not a whole lot of trust there. That could make for an interesting debate Tuesday on stadiums in the Senate. I've written plenty about that issue already and will have more tomorrow, so I don't think I'll get into it now.

I remember doing some of the first reporting on proposals to create a commuter rail system back in the mid-90's. Now it looks like the Northstar line may actually be getting close to reality. MPR's Dan Olson had that story.

I had some technical problems getting today's Policast together, so I'm behind. If you don't know what Policast is, it's the fastest growing political podcast in Minnesota. In fact, we saw 100 percent growth from March to April. OK, that means 50 people were downloading it in March and 100 did it in April, but to me that's trending in the right direction! It's a great service if you want to catch up on MPR's political reporting but don't necessarily have time to wait for it to come around on the radio. Right now I'm putting the reporter's stories on there (when the technical end works), but in the future I hope to add interviews and other special features. If you are downloading it, drop me a note to let me know what you think and how I can make it better.