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Capitol View®
Tim Pugmire

Bakk says DFL will put up Senate stadium votes

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Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk pulled a flea-flicker play on TPT's Almanac at the Capitol tonight: two days after a Vikings bill died in a House committee. The DFL-er offered a surprise pledge to revive the plan in the Senate.

"The bill in the Senate is in the Local Government committee, and Sen. Senjem has been having a hard time getting the Republican votes there," Bakk told Almanac reporter Mary Lahammer. "So I actually told him yesterday that I will put up the majority of the votes to pass the bill in the local government committee, if they can get a hearing scheduled there, to move it onto the Senate tax committee, where it'll face another pretty tough hurdle."

Republican Senate Majority Leader Dave Senjem wasn't nearly so effusive about the idea.

When asked by Lahammer whether the Senate would hold another stadium hearing, Senjem responded: "I would believe probably we are, one way or another."

He said it would be up to Senate Local Government chair Sen. Ray Vandeveer, R-Forest Lake, and stadium bill sponsor Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont.

Senjem also put in a plug for GOP Sen. Roger Chamberlain's plan to loan the Vikings money for a new stadium rather than subsidizing the project outright.

"People are all of the sudden starting to look at it far more seriously than before," Senjem said. "There's a tone in our caucus, let's take a longer look at that one."

Senjem said the hearing could still come this week.