WASHINGTON — One day before the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to debate on a bill authorizing the construction of a new $700 million bridge over the St. Croix River, lawmakers on both sides of the issue are trying to finesse their colleagues into voting with them.
GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann said she was “working the phones, we are pounding the pavement, I’m knocking on doors” trying to consolidate support for the bridge project, which will be considered under a procedural rule requiring two-thirds of the House to support the bill for its passage. A vote is planned for Thursday.
Bachmann has the backing of House leadership, which slipped the bill onto the House’s schedule on Monday night. Gov. Mark Dayton said last week that Congress must approve the bill before March 15 in order for the project to go forward. The Senate unanimously approved the project in January.
“It really is like Moses parting the waters to get this done,” Bachmann said. “We’ve never seen this bridge project as far along as it is now. … We didn’t want to see the window close.”
Bachmann said she had been reaching out to Republican colleagues, while Democratic supporters had been wrangling to get votes from that side of the aisle. Though the bill has broad bipartisan support among members of the Minnesota and Wisconsin congressional delegations, a sizable number of Democrats opposed the legislation when the House Natural Resources Committee considered it in November. She’ll need 48 Democrats to back the bill in order for it to pass, assuming full Republican support.
Dayton lobbies leaders
Dayton lobbied both House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, asking them to back the plan.
“The urgent need for this connection between Wisconsin and Minnesota has united Members of Congress and the Governors from both states and both political parties,” he wrote in a letter to the lawmakers. “We ask for your support of this legislation and your assistance in securing its passage by the U.S. House of Representatives.”
On the other side of the St. Croix, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker reaffirmed his support for the project last week after Dayton imposed the March 15 deadline. Walker’s office said the entire Wisconsin Congressional delegation backs the plan.
The bill’s chief opponent, Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum, was working just as hard Tuesday to convince lawmakers to vote against the bill. McCollum’s office sent a letter to colleagues asking them to vote against the “boondoggle bridge,” and plugged the opposition of the fiscal watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Letter from Mondale
McCollum and Rep. Keith Ellison also forwarded to House Democrats a letter from former Vice President Walter Mondale, who was a main sponsor of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which protects the St. Croix River and would need to be bypassed in order for the bridge project to go forward. Two environmental groups, the Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association, circulated letters opposing the project as well.
The last minute barrage of opposition is designed to play to Democrats' sensibilities, but Democratic leadership is not instructing members how to vote one way or another, according to the Democratic whip's office.
McCollum remains opposed to the size and scope of the project. She said an exemption to the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act should still pass, but that the current $700 million four-lane proposed bridge should shrink.
“I stress to everybody, Stillwater needs to have this bridge replaced, but we find ourselves in a circumstance where the only replacement option is $700 million and it only is going to be serving 18,000 cars,” she said. “It sets a terrible precedent by writing into law that the biggest exemption is the best exemption for the river.”
She’s setting expectations low for the vote on Thursday, acknowledging that Republican leadership wouldn’t have brought the bill to the floor unless they were confident they could get the votes to pass it.
Still, “my job is to do oversight, my job is to speak up and speak out when I think something could be done in a more cost-effective and better way, and I’m doing my job,” McCollum said.
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry