Speaker Daudt continues his campaign of placebaiting across Greater Minnesota, chumming the rhetorical waters with language that divides the metro from the rest of us.
At the Brainerd Dispatch, Zach Kayser reports in Minnesota speaker Daudt visits Brainerd: Says public can still view floor sessions of Legislature in 2016:
Daudt appeared optimistic the Legislature could finally get a transportation bill through, although he said there were still sticking points left.
One transportation issue that remained "unanswered" was mass transit in the metro, Daudt said.
"Some of the members in Minneapolis and St. Paul really want to see some new revenue go into the light rail, different modes of transportation in the metro area," he said. "To try to sneak money through for trains in the metro area, we don't think that's a very effective way to spend our dollars."
Speaker Daudt appears to hold his own private definition of the word "sneak," since neither the governor nor Senate transportation chair Scott Dibble have been secretive about how they want to fund light rail in the metro.
Seriously, that mechanism was out in January. At the Star Tribune. Janet Moore and Patrick Condon reported in DFL unveils $800 million fix for roads and bridges:
DFL legislators in the Minnesota Senate pitched their plan on Monday to fix the state’s aging roads and bridges — a template that would raise at least $800 million a year through a wholesale gas tax and by increasing other taxes and fees, including license tabs.
The plan also calls for increasing a metro-area sales tax to pay for public transit — including the controversial $1.65 billion Southwest light-rail line.
“This is a serious problem that requires a serious solution,” said Sen. Susan Kent, DFL-Woodbury, who appeared with several colleagues at a news conference to unveil their plan.
The proposal, authored by Minneapolis DFL Sen. Scott Dibble, who chairs the Senate transportation committee, has as its centerpiece a sales tax on gas at the wholesale level of 6.5 percent a gallon. That would be on top of the existing 28.5-cents-per-gallon state gas tax.
That’s identical to a proposal from Gov. Mark Dayton, who has identified a big transportation spending boost as a top priority of the new legislative session. Dayton also has advocated a license tab fee increase and a metro sales tax for transit.
It's fascinating to read Daudt assert that those who publicly state their desires are planning to "sneak money though."
Doubly so, given that the Center for Public Integrity's Katie Nelson wrote in a report released Monday, Minnesota gets D- grade in 2015 State Integrity Investigation:
On a grueling final day of the legislative session last May, Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt breezed through the final language of a major budget bill, passing motions at the pace of an auctioneer as his colleagues cried in vain for a copy of the legislation.
“Mr. Speaker, it’s 93 pages long and nobody in this body has gotten a copy of it,” said Democratic Rep. Melissa Hortman. “We have no idea what’s in this bill.”
Seated under a gold-leafed statue depicting “Lady Minnesota” alongside pioneers and American Indian leaders, the Republican speaker ignored their pleas and called for a vote, which prevailed with overwhelming approval. The thump of his mallet carried across the chamber to signal a done deal.
Though brief, those two minutes of the 2015 session provided an illuminating public window into the inner workings of the Legislature; procedures that include last-minute deal making, closed-door negotiations and convoluted ethics protocols.
Some journalists and government watchdogs say that chaotic moment was representative of a systematic failure of transparency in state government — a “perfect storm of little problems” said Jeremy Schroeder, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota, an advocacy group.
Perhaps Daudt fears the sneaky because he knows it so well, but we don't see it in Senator Dibble's legislative style.
As for his playing to Greater Minnesota's sense of injured merit in the transportation funding debate, we draw readers' attention to Bill Lindeke's January 14, 2015 Map of the Day: State Highway Taxes vs. State Highway Spending at streets.mn:
Here are two maps showing the same basic dynamic: for all its talk of geographic inequality, rural Minnesota has been getting more than its fair share of road money for a long time.
There's that. Check out the maps on the blog.
Photo: A Metro light rail train, sneaking by Union Depot and the state capitol, via Union Depot.
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Sneaky Snake Daudt, always playing the place card in order to kill off anything that might help all Minnesotans.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Nov 11, 2015 at 11:35 AM