Post Bulletin editorial board chastises Duane Quam and Greg Davids on sales tax bill

The Post Bulletin reported on how the Rochester sales tax fueled a raucous representatives' floor debate. Now the editorial board weighs in on two Southeastern Republicans' performance.

In Sales tax isn't an 'us-vs.-them' issue. The editors first observe that tax committee chair Greg Davids has been boldly anti-Rochester since returned to the legislature in 2008:

We're not surprised by his willingness to "go to the mattresses" on this or any other Rochester-related issue. Davids has been on an anti-Rochester rant since he rejoined the House, and he clearly is enjoying this opportunity to flex his political muscle. We'd go so far as to say that threatening to kill the sales tax in its entirety was both spiteful and vindictive.

But their real spleen is reserved for the representative closer to home who was the chief sponsor of the bill extending the sales tax (a move that Rochester residents will also have to approve at the polls):

But we're even more disappointed with Rep. Duane Quam. As a Republican from Byron who represents a lot of Rochester residents, he showed no backbone on Monday when he voted against a proposal that would have restored the very bill he authored. In explaining this vote, he claimed that some items had been added to the city's proposal in a less-than-forthright matter.

That begs the question: Did Quam read the sales tax bill before he introduced it? His backing away from it now leaves us to choose from three unflattering conclusions: He didn't know what the sales tax proposal contained; he introduced the bill as a courtesy to the city but had no real intention of supporting it; or, he simply caved in to pressure from Davids and the rest of the GOP leadership.

Read the rest in the PB.

The Post Bulletin doesn't bring up another fascinating element of Davids' behavior, but one of Bluestem's readers did in a comment he left here. For all his opposition to the sales tax in Rochester, he didn't hesitate to approve a deal for Target Field that allowed sales tax revenues to help pay for the stadium--without allowing citizens of Hennepin County to vote on the tax:

I'm from Minneapolis, so I won't really have to pay any of this tax unless I decide to head down to Rochester. As far as I'm concerned, the local residents should get to decide this issue at the polls.

But, I have to say, I saw part of this discussion on TV in the late afternoon, and I heard Rep. Davids talking about how he doesn't want to have to make his constituents pay this tax without getting a vote on it. Trouble is, Rep. Davids voted in 2006 to allow Hennepin County to impose a Stadium sales tax with NO referendum at all. This proposal for Rochester has a referendum. So if he thinks a county should be able to impose a tax with no referendum, why is it such a problem for Davids to have a City council assemble their own proposal for consideration by voters without his meddling? But maybe he just makes it up as he goes along. After all, in the debate, he even admitted that he had "evolved," because he claime that jn his first election in a special election in 1991, he promised to get rid of the Rochester sales tax. So he's saying that city fathers should be lucky that "Uncle Greg"--and yes he did refer to himself as Uncle Greg--decided to support any tax at all. Sigh. Well, elections have consequences. Remember that in November 2012 , ok?

Yes, indeedie.

Photos: Greg Davids (above); Duane Quam (below).