It’s trading day at the Capitol.
Republican legislative leaders have been meeting with Gov. Mark Dayton over how a deal can be done that will end this session, giving all parties a taste of what they want.
Dayton, of course, wants a big bonding bill and a football stadium.
Republicans still want a tax break for businesses and a smaller bonding bill. Dayton already has made it clear that he won’t yield on another GOP priority, the end of the seniority protections during teacher layoffs.
But Dayton isn’t only dealing with the GOP. If he is to get the football stadium he seems to want so much, he’s going to need considerable DFL support. And there are DFLers using that for leverage to get things they need for their home districts.
Sen. Kathy Sheran, DFL-Mankato, for example, was to meet again today with the governor to push for the bonding money her region wants to create more convention space around the hockey arena the city and Mankato State built together years ago.
“That [the $15 million bond] is as important to our vitality as the football stadium and the convention center is to Minneapolis,” said Sheran, who indicated her vote for or against a Vikings stadium may be based on whether Mankato’s project is in the bonding bill.
The St. Paul delegation still is pushing hard for some sort of “fairness” in dealings surrounding the Vikings’ stadium. It’s a votes-for-dollars position.
Rumors are rumbling that Republicans, being pushed by their most conservative factions, are saying “no” to so-called local projects, such as the Mankato, St. Cloud and Rochester convention centers.
All of these linkages already have extended the session into Monday — and perhaps longer.
There are ironic conflicts that also are creating some political problems for Republican legislative leaders. It was expected, for instance, that Saturday might have been a long work day, with Senate and House members taking up the stadium bill.
But Saturday also is to be a big anti-tax rally at the Capitol. Do Republicans really want to be debating a $398 million subsidy for a Vikings’ stadium with the anti-tax, small-government crowd around?
Meantime, Dayton has problems of his own.
There is a substantial core of DFL legislators who already oppose the public subsidy for the stadium. If the governor gives up too much — in the way of tax breaks to business or cuts bonding too deeply to placate the GOP — rumblings in the DFL caucus could become a roar.