House, Senate pass $334 million public works bill

They put up all the votes needed to pass the $334 million bill for college campuses and transit, but not enough to override an expected governor's veto.

By Conrad Defiebre, Star Tribune

Last update: April 30, 2007 - 10:31 PM

DFLers flexed their legislative muscle Monday by sending a $334 million public-works bill for college campuses, mass transit, bridges and more to Gov. Tim Pawlenty with practically no help from minority Republicans.

The DFL majorities in the House and Senate alone posted the 60 percent votes needed to approve $168 million in state borrowing for half the measure, but they fell short of the two-thirds required to override expected vetoes from the Republican governor.

"This bill is chock full of more pork than Famous Dave's on the Fourth of July," said House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall. "The only question is whether the governor will veto the whole thing or make so many line-item vetoes that you won't recognize it anymore."

The first major spending bill of the 2007 session passed the House on three straight party-line votes of 84 to 49. In the Senate, Republicans Dick Day of Owatonna and Paul Koering of Fort Ripley joined DFLers on a vote of 45-18.

Now begins a three-day period in which the governor has to decide whether and how to exercise his veto pen. His spokesman, Brian McClung, said Monday that Pawlenty will at least "significantly trim" the measure.

The bill far exceeds Pawlenty's recommendation for $71 million in capital improvements, which focuses almost entirely on expansion of the Duluth arena and convention center, farmland conservation, repairs to the state Transportation Building and upgrades to the Oak Park Heights maximum-security state prison.

In the Legislature's plan, in addition to most of Pawlenty's requests, are hundreds of millions of dollars more for university facilities, a school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, the planned Central Corridor transit line linking the Minneapolis and St. Paul downtowns and infrastructure for a proposed $1.6 billion steel mill in Itasca County.

House Capital Investment Finance Division Chairwoman Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, said the bill would boost Minnesota's economy, create construction jobs and improve public health and safety. And she said it would spread the wealth statewide, applying more than half the spending outside the Twin Cities.

Senate Minority Leader David Senjem, R-Rochester, called the bill "fine" despite his no vote. The problem, he said, is its timing three weeks before the Legislature's May 21 adjournment deadline and its use of $164 million in cash drawn from the state budget surplus to finance nearly half its projects -- including most of those sought by Pawlenty.

"We may need that money at the end of the session" as part of an overall state budget agreement, Senjem said.

But Senate Capital Investment Committee Chairman Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, said it's only proper to spend a small fraction of the state's one-time surplus of $1 billion on building projects. Under DFL plans, most of the rest would go into the state budget reserve.

Conrad deFiebre • 651-222-1673 • cdefiebre@startribune.com