Capitol View: February 9, 2009 Archive

Dayton blasts Pawlenty over trip abroad

Posted at 11:09 AM on February 9, 2009 by Tim Pugmire (1 Comments)

Former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton is ramping up his campaign for governor in 2010 by taking a shot at Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

DFLer Dayton said today that the Republican governor should reimburse taxpayers for the costs of his weekend trip to Germany. Pawlenty attended the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy. He traveled with a delegation that included members of Congress, military and security officials and others.

Dayton claims Pawlenty's trip has more to do with running for president than his duties as governor.

"If he wants to go away on a weekend to try to make himself look better qualified for president than Sarah Palin, he has a right to do so," Dayton said. "But he ought to pay for it out of his own campaign committee, and not pretend this has anything to do with his official responsibilities."

In response to Dayton's comments, Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said there's nothing to reimburse, because there were no additional costs to taxpayers. McClung explained that the governor used frequent flier miles to travel to Washington. He said the delegation had fixed costs with or without Pawlenty's participation.

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Pawlenty responds to Dayton

Posted at 3:54 PM on February 9, 2009 by Tim Pugmire (9 Comments)

During an interview this afternoon on WCCO Radio, Gov. Tim Pawlenty was asked about former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton, who earlier in the day had called on the governor to reimburse taxpayers for a weekend trip to Germany. Pawlenty attended the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy. Here's what the governor had to say on the radio:

"Of course Mark's running for governor, so you've got to put it in context.

But he probably didn't know, and if he would have called we would have told him, that the trip didn't cost the taxpayers anything out of pocket, in the sense that there's a military plane that went to Germany that carried the delegation to the security conference. It was going any how, so there was no additional cost of me taking a spot on that plane, as I did last year.

And when you're the commander in chief of the Minnesota National Guard, and you're going to deploy soldiers -- like we are tomorrow night at the St. Paul civic center, a thousand soldiers going off to Iran (Editor Note: Pawlenty said Iran on the air. His spokesman said he misspoke and corrected himself on the air later) and a month from now another thousand going to the middle east to fight in the war -- it helps to have an understanding of those issues, the dynamics, the security issues. And I get asked about it in my role as governor by families, by reporters and the like. So, there is value in doing it."

A word of clarification from the governor's spokesman:

Tim -

Just a note that the Governor made a misstatement in the part of the radio interview you posted on Polinaut.
He meant to say "Iraq" when he said "Iran."

We're going to make that correction on the air in a few minutes.

Thanks,

Brian McClung
Director of Communications
Office of Governor Tim Pawlenty

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Senate ends debate on stimulus package

Posted at 4:39 PM on February 9, 2009 by Tom Scheck

61 senators vote to end cloture. Minnesota's only senator, DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar, voted for it.

It appears the vote to pass the bill is set for tomorrow.