Legislative leaders cool to stadium bill

The Vikings stadium bill that will be unveiled next week got a decidedly lukewarm reception from legislative leaders of both parties Friday, even as the Republican authors are pushing on..

Gov. Mark Dayton, however, described the bill as "a good start."

In a rare case of agreement between Republicans and DFLers, they said during their weekly session with the Capitol press corps that any talk of public subsidies for a new stadium will have to take a back seat to continuing debates over the state's budget woes.

Even though the bill is being pushed by two leading Republican legislators, House Speaker Kurt Zellers and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch both beat a retreat from it.

"I hate to sound like a broken record, but until they have a site, until they have a plan, until they have a partner, it's awfully hard for us and the Vikings to get to that point," Zellers said. "If that's what the governor wants, I think it's also time for the governor to engage on this."

Although Gov. Mark Dayton said this week he supports building a "people's stadium" without using state general fund money, he hasn't reacted directly to the bill's particulars, which were released late Thursday.

In a statement released Friday, Dayton said the bill "gets the stadium discussion started within the Legislature," he continued. "It includes what I view as essential elements of a stadium bill, particularly that no general fund dollars be used to pay for it. It's up to the Legislature to move this forward, but I am ready to work with them to create a 'people's stadium.'"

House Minority Leader Paul Thissen said he has "said all along the budget comes first and if we're not willing to raise taxes for our schools and police and firefighters it's very hard to see rasing taxes to build a Vikings stadium."

Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, a co-author of an earlier stadium bill, said the surfacing of a stadium bill is a Republican diversionary tactic. "You know why it's in the news? Because they have a really, really poor budget for Minnesota's future. So they put a letter out in the hope, in the hope, that they can change the story. Can we talk about something else that we're doing instead of what we're doing to Minnesota's future

"If they were serious about a stadium bill, they would have introduced it back in January or February. To wait until the middle of all the budget cut bills is just a political gimmick.."

Although there had been talk of a Vikings bill being unveiled early in the legislative session, Zellers and Koch said they didn't advise the authors about when it should be introduced.

Bakk also said that even though he believes it's too late in the session to act on a stadium bill, he said that if Koch becomes a co-sponsor, he'd likely sign on as well.