Special session still possible

10/15/2005

‘We’re going to give it another few days,’ Pawlenty says

BY PATRICK SWEENEY
Pioneer Press

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Friday he has not yet pulled the plug on the idea of calling a special legislative session to approve a new on-campus football stadium for the University of Minnesota.

“We’re going to give it another few days,” Pawlenty said of his schedule for reaching a decision on calling lawmakers back to the Capitol for a second special session this year.

Speaking on his radio talk show, Pawlenty speculated that legislators might approve a Hennepin County sales tax for a new Minnesota Twins ballpark in the same special session.

But Pawlenty also said “the world doesn’t end” if lawmakers do not take up the stadium issues until the Legislature convenes in March.

On Tuesday, Rep. Erik Paulsen of Eden Prairie, the leader of the Republican majority in the Minnesota House, urged Pawlenty not to call a special session, calling it “the wrong idea at the wrong time.” Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, previously told Pawlenty most Senate Republicans wanted no part of a special session.

Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party leaders in the House and Senate have been more equivocal in their public comments about a special session, although House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, DFL-St. Paul, predicted this week that Pawlenty would not call one.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, on Friday asked his staff to again poll Democratic senators about their interest in a special session.

Last week, Pawlenty and three top legislative leaders said there was a possibility they would agree on a special session for votes on only two issues: approval of $7 million a year in state funding for a Gophers stadium and a choice by the Legislature on which hospital chain would be allowed to build a new hospital in Maple Grove.

Pawlenty on Friday touched on those two issues and also held out the possibility that lawmakers might vote in special session on the controversial proposal by Hennepin County to impose a sales tax for a Twins stadium in Minneapolis.