Voters' choice: Highways vs. taxes

With a victory in this week's special election, on the southern fringe of the metro area, for a seat in the Minnesota Senate, the DFL would have a "supermajority" in the Legislature, meaning it could overturn Pawlenty's vetoes.

By DAVID PETERSON, Star Tribune

Last update: December 29, 2007 - 8:17 PM

"I shook the governor's hand this morning," Kevin Dahle said. "I didn't tell him I was going to override his vetoes."

Those two sentences capture what's at stake in this week's special election, on the southern fringe of the metro area, for a seat in the Minnesota Senate.

Dahle, the DFL candidate, assumes that Gov. Tim Pawlenty was in Northfield -- striding alongside Dahle's Republican opponent late last week -- because the party is taking this election very seriously.

And one big reason for Republicans to worry is that one more Senate seat would give the DFL the so-called "supermajority" it needs to overturn Pawlenty vetoes.

That prospect, both sides agree, is giving the election an extra jolt of energy -- especially considering that Pawlenty's most renowned veto is of a transportation bill that could both do a lot for, and cost a lot to, a district teeming with long-range commuters.

The more-rural western end of the district contains "some very conservative areas," said Republican candidate Ray Cox of Northfield, who considers himself a moderate. "But they're uniting behind me because they realize the importance of the governor's veto power. It helps us pull things together for the special election."

Independence Party nominee Vance Norgaard is the third candidate in the election, which takes place Thursday because Tuesday is a holiday.

The election is needed because a Rice County judge retired and Sen. Tom Neuville, R-Northfield, who has been representing District 25 since he was first elected to the Senate in 1990, was named to the bench.

At the moment Dahle was shaking Pawlenty's hand in Northfield, Neuville was boxing his belongings in his Capitol office.

Even though it's exurban, Neuville said, the district is highly competitive. While he represented it for 17 years, he won in a rout only once. "It's a marginally Democrat-leaning district," he said, "mostly because of Northfield," with its two liberal-arts colleges.

Cox and Dahle agree that transportation is a key issue at stake.

Asked what issue works best for a DFLer across the district, Dahle began by mentioning transportation, adding:

"I have a lot of union support, and union members want these construction projects, they want the roads and bridges. And what we're learning about our infrastructure needs," post-bridge-collapse, "shows a real need for them."

The massive transportation bill that Pawlenty vetoed this year, however, would have raised the gasoline tax -- a form of taxation that hits long-range commuters hard.

Cox doesn't hesitate for a second when asked what the No. 1 issue is for voters he talks to: "Taxes. People are loud and clear on that. Those on the western end of the district, in particular, don't want anything to do with any new taxes, period. Nothin'."

The race pits two men who know each other fairly well. Dahle has taught Cox's kids civics at Northfield High. Cox, a former state representative in the area, has spoken in Dahle's class. Each pledges not to get snarky about the other, but neither can resist entirely.

Cox, for instance, owns a construction firm, and Dahle seizes on Cox's comment in a debate that he's a man who signs the front of checks, not the back. He meant to emphasize the importance of small-business experience in the Legislature. But Dahle says Cox risks alienating voters by talking like that.

"Most people in this district are working-class people who sign the backs of checks," he said. Cox's business has "30 or 40 workers, none of them union," he added, "one reason I have so much labor support."

For his part, Cox says that Dahle's role as public employee and teachers union leader turns voters off. "People say he negotiated Northfield's schools right into the toilet -- a high contract settlement. People know about that."

Both men agree that students at Northfield's two colleges, St. Olaf and Carleton, are a big wild card. Dahle hopes that U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken will inspire them to get out and vote. Cox worries that they will be overly swayed by DFL depictions of him as a man with "blood dripping off my fangs" and won't see him for the soft-right environmentalist he says he really is.

"It comes down to the students," he said. "If they're motivated and in here, it's difficult."

David Peterson • 952-882-9023

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