PoliGraph: Freedom Club’s Senate building ad misleads
Construction begins this week on an office building in St. Paul, an unremarkable bricks and mortar project that has become one of the hottest campaign issues of the 2014 election season.
For months, Republicans have portrayed the new Minnesota Senate office building as an example of runaway spending by the DFL-controlled Legislature and Gov. Mark Dayton.
The topic is such political red meat that it was the subject of a recent six-figure ad campaign paid for by the Freedom Club, a conservative group backed by business interests and wealthy GOP donors.
Here’s a key passage from the Freedom Club’s spot:
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"They’re building a new luxury office building – for themselves. A building that will cost taxpayers $77 million. To pay for their new luxury office building, they passed a record setting tax increase. And our property taxes went up."
There are some truthful statements here. But taken together, the ad paints a misleading picture.
The evidence
According to invoices filed with the Federal Communications Commission, the Freedom Club’s ad ran through the end of July on several major broadcast networks in the Twin Cities. The group has spent more than $400,000 on the spots so far.
The ad focuses on the cost and funding for the new Senate office building. The building complex, which includes the building and parking, will cost a total of $90 million. Taxpayers will cover $77 million for the building, with the rest coming from parking fees. However, Dayton administration officials recently said the cost of the building may be less than expected.
The project was initially authorized in a 2013 tax bill. That bill included no price tag for the project and allocated no funding for construction, only planning, but it also raised taxes on Minnesota’s highest incomes. Only this year did the Senate and House rules committees approve the $77 million tab for taxpayers.
In addition, a specially convened committee approved the project’s architect and the construction company. That vote was both bipartisan and unanimous.
The Freedom Club ad misleads by implying the DFL-controlled Legislature raised income taxes specifically to pay for the new building. That is not the case.
The Legislature has authorized borrowing to pay for the new building, and it is expected to appropriate money every year to pay for that debt. But so far, no appropriation has been made.
As for whether property taxes went up, that’s a complicated story, too.
It’s true that property tax collections have gone up by about $125 million between 2013 and 2014 -- largely because voters approved higher school levies in most school districts in 2013.
But in the most recent legislative session, lawmakers approved property tax relief, lowering property taxes by about $50 million between 2013 and 2014.
A new House research report shows that property taxes are predicted to rise again between 2014 and 2015, largely because a boom in new construction is fueling an increase in the tax base, not because of higher rates.
The verdict
Aspects of the Freedom Club’s ad are accurate. For instance, it’s true the new office building will cost $77 million and that it will ultimately be paid for with taxpayer dollars.
But all these bits and pieces of information are packaged in such a way that details about the building and taxes distort the facts.
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