Legislators fail to agree on bonding bill for construction projects

03/22/2005

March 22, 2005

Legislators clashed Monday night over the bonding bill to bankroll major state construction projects—the same piece of legislation that threw the Legislature into partisan gridlock last year.

House and Senate negotiators tried to reconcile what amounted to a $70 million difference on a list of projects totaling nearly $1 billion. But that proved no small task as Republicans and Democrats traded accusations of broken deals and abandoned promises.

Monday night’s talks started on a contentious note, when the lead GOP negotiator, Rep. Dan Dorman, of Albert Lea, offered colleagues an $880 million plan. His DFL counterpart, Sen. Keith Langseth of Glyndon, charged that Dorman had abandoned a handshake deal of $950 million.

Dorman said he had only agreed to present the $950 million proposal to Republican leaders. They rejected it, he said, admitting that he has less latitude in the negotiations than Langseth.

“That was not going to pass my caucus,” Dorman said.

That led to a round of accusations and counteraccusations between House Republicans and Langseth, with both sides claiming to have already sacrificed more than the other in the deals they were offering.