The state of Minnesota built it, but they won't come.
Forum Communications political reporter Don Davis writes in Minnesota GOP senators refuse to move into newly constructed building:
Minnesota Senate Republicans refuse to move into a nearly complete $90 million building they say is a waste of money.
Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, said that his members see no reason a move is needed now. In a year, voters will go to the polls to pick all 67 senators, and there are bound to be changes that would result in more moves before the 2017 legislative session.
The GOP decision did not set well with Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, D-Cook.
“This is exactly the kind of short-term political gamesmanship that Minnesotans have no time for," Bakk said Thursday.
Bakk said the Republican decision to stay in the State Office Building will cost the taxpayers.
"There are other state entities currently planning to move into the State Office Building space, moving these entities to that space will save thousands of taxpayer dollars," the majority leader said.
Bakk's spokeswoman said that a non-partisan legislative department hopes to move into the Senate Republicans' space from a private building. The department pays $55,614 annual rent. . . .
Take that, Office of the Revisor! It's more important to preserve a talking point, than to consolidate the senate in one building.
Winter is coming
There's more. Hann will creating a longer march to work for his fiscal justice warriors during the wilds of a late Minnesota winter. Davis reports:
The new building is across the street north of the Capitol. The State Office Building is across the street west. While the two buildings are about a block apart, if the 27 GOP senators want to avoid winter weather and use the Capitol-area tunnel system that connects those two buildings and others to the Capitol, it will be a much longer hike.
Perhaps the Minnesota Action Network and Minnesota Job Coalition can spin that as a cost effective fitness program for Hann's caucus.
Daudt also wasting money
Hann's is not alone in having taxpayers underwrite their 2016 anti-senate office building campaign rhetoric. Davis reports that Daudt has insisted that the House chamber be re-opened for the session:
The new building will have the only Senate committee meeting rooms until the Capitol reopens. Even then, most committee rooms will be in the Senate facility.
The largest of the new building's committee rooms will be used as a Senate chamber next year while the Capitol is mostly closed. The House, however, will spend an estimated $500,000 to reopen its chamber for the 2016 session.
The House chamber will be the only part of the Capitol open next year, and the Capitol will have no running water or restrooms. Galleries used by the public to watch House sessions will be closed.
Saving money by meeting in the new building? Keeping out of the way of construction workers fixing up the aging Cass Gilbert capitol building? Opening up office space for state agencies now paying rent elsewhere?
Perish the thought. Hann spreading will take the day--and a lot of space. Bluestem isn't a fan of Senate Majority Leader Bakk, but this is nonsense.
Photo: Senate Minority Leader David Hann, waxing expansive (above). Winter is coming and the Republicans will have a longer walk to work next March (below).
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