Vikings stadium bill headed for Senate
After some rough sledding in the Minnesota House, including a $105 million upcharge for the Vikings, the 2012 stadium bill is headed for the Senate this morning.
Senators were already girding for its arrival last night.
Here's what minority leader Tom Bakk had to say after monitoring the 73-58 vote in the House.
"The House put some very, very bad amendments on the stadium bill. I'm not surprised that it passed. I mean, they increase the Vikings contribution $105 million more than the team has said their willing to contribute. I don't believe that that vote is actually ever going to actually build a stadium. So the Senate clearly is going to have to do the hard work on this, and get the bill into the kind of condition where the Vikings the city of Minneapolis will actually execute the provisions passed by the legislature. Very disappointed with many of the amendments that went on on the House side. Hopefully, when the Senate takes the bill up... we won't have those kind of antics going on over here, and people will get serious about voting for a stadium bill that's going to get built. I mean, I think House members that voted for a stadium today didn't vote for a stadium that's ever going to get built."
On the other side of the aisle, bill author Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, took a similarly dim view of the House action on the stadium plan.
"I think they're (Vikings) looking at what they can do but certainly $100 million is a deal breaker and they have to stop that here. That's a deal breaker and then we have no deal but I think there is some room to maneuver."
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