It's stadium day

Posted at 12:27 PM on May 9, 2006 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)

Update 2:04pm The Senate has just passed the Twins and Vikings bill (the one with light rail and transportation projects in it and a metro-wide sales tax referendum) 34-32.

SF2460, the Gophers stadium bill, just passed the Senate on a 34-32 vote. Here's the roll call. I'll have the roll call on Votetracker in a few minutes.(It's a very high-tech process, I take a picture of the TV screen showing the Senate tote board and then load it up into Photoshop and squint my way to figuring out the vote. Hi tech, eh?)

There does not appear to be any taxing mechanism attached to it, but I admit I turned on the debate late so I'll have to sort it out later.

The Senate is now taking up the Twins and Vikings stadium bill with gubernatorial candidate Sen. Steve Kelly leading the charge.

Comments (5)

*phew*, I'm glad to know the nation's 78'th richest person, Carl Pohlad, is getting the welfare he needs in order to get by...

God, how stupid are we as a state that we let this nonsense go on? When our schools are all properly funded and nobody is sleeping out of doors who is not earning a Merit badge, THAT'S when we can decide to give money to billionaires for ball parks...

Posted by Albatross | May 9, 2006 2:24 PM

Albatross - what about all my tax dollars that went to Northwest Airlines? What about the Mall
of America asking for tax increment financing assistance? I never got to vote on those, I could go on but I won't...
Let's get the House version of the baseball stadium done.

Posted by mpls1934 | May 9, 2006 5:03 PM

Why is this business getting done this year... as opposed to recent years? Is the small budget surplus giving the Legislature a pass? There are so many other things these guys/gals should be working on, it blows my mind they are passing these bills.

And more unbelievable... they are raising taxes!

Of course... with the Senate passing a totally different bill... are they sabotaging this whole thing? And the House already calling it DOA, are they sabotaging these bills? So they can campaign that they tried to get a new stadium, but the other side blew it?

That's what I'm predicting!

Posted by gml4 | May 10, 2006 1:34 AM

If that bill squekeed by with only 2 votes to spare (or no votes depending on the two Senators that decided voting wasn't there thing), then the House and Governor may have to give in a little bit and go with the Metro Wide Tax no refferendum compramise.

I'm sure David Strom calls it a tax no matter how the governor spins it, so he might as well allow the metro wide tax to happen if he is so desprate to give a $500 million handout to the Twins.

Posted by Mike Grimes | May 10, 2006 5:40 AM

The only sneator note voting was Ranum. And, as you may know, she's not running again because her husband has brain cancer, I believe.

There WAS a vote that switched at the last minute to push the Twins/Vikes stadium over the top. It was 33-33 at the time of the switch. I took a screenshot of the tote board and couldn't tell for sure whose it was...thought it was Betzold's, but don't quote me.

Posted by Bob Collins | May 10, 2006 8:34 AM

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