Baseball on the Brain
John Tuma’s Capitol Update – April 9, 2010
"There is not a finer facility in all of minor league baseball, and not two better in the Majors."
- Calvin Griffith, 1959
In the 1950s Minnesotans had a vision to grow our Twin Cities into a first-class metropolitan area. No small part of that strategy was to attract a major league baseball team. To make that vision a reality, they constructed the Metropolitan Stadium on some old vegetable fields in Bloomington. The $8.5 million stadium opened in April of 1956 where record crowds of 18,366 were on hand to watch the minor league Minneapolis Millers play a team from Wichita. This bold move was rewarded initially with an expansion team to start in the 1960 season. In a twist of fate that would set the stage for significant political dramas around stadiums in the future, the expansion team never came. Instead, the owner of the Washington, DC Senators, Calvin Griffin, convinced the rest of the owners to award the expansion team to Washington, DC and allow him to move his franchise to Minnesota. Calvin believed he was heading to greener pastures in Minnesota, particularly with its new stadium.
After arriving in Minnesota, the storied franchise was renamed the Twins. In time, the Twins were banished to the artificial plastic-turfed ThunderDome against their will. Though the dome played integral roles in two World Series victories, several division championships, and even some record attendance years, it was still a pitiful ballpark. As a result, several years of multiple threats to move or disband the franchise resulted in a high-stakes political hot potato at the State Capitol. The final outcome was the recent construction of the Twins new outdoor home park known as Target Field in downtown Minneapolis. I'm still against state subsidies for baseball fields. Therefore, I extend my sympathies to my good friends in Hennepin County who have to pay a higher sales tax to subsidize one of my favorite pastimes. Nonetheless, come Monday our family will be occupying the bleacher seats in left field for the Twins’ home opener.
Okay, I do have a little baseball on my mind; it's hard for politicians and lobbyists not to have their minds someplace other than the Capitol these days. The return from Passover/Easter break on Tuesday of this week, a break that provided some exceptional weather for Minnesotans, had the Legislature settling into a much more tentative pace than the one experienced throughout March. Last month was filled with hectic activity as legislators raced to meet their committee deadlines and assemble the first budget balancing package. It's not surprising that the pace slowed. It’s common for the Legislature to slow down at this stage of the session as they move towards the more tedious task of passing bills off their floors. Nonetheless, there are some external factors that have led to a more noticeable attention deficit at the Capitol this April.
The most obvious of these external factors is the pending state party conventions. With Governor Pawlenty’s announcement that he will not seek re-election for governor, there have been several legislators who have thrown their hat into the ring to replace him. Given the severe budget crisis, this has made many DFL legislators who are candidates for governor reluctant to finalize their cuts to the budgets for Health and Human Services and K-12. At the other end of the spectrum, the Republican candidates and their surrogates are busy dreaming up floor amendments to endear themselves to the conservative core of the party, which further dampens the DFL majority’s ability to move legislation.
Another important factor slowing the Legislature's pace is uncertainty regarding federal aid. The first installment of the budget balancing by the Legislature was passed before the Passover/Easter break. Unfortunately, it only put them about a third of the way to solving their $1 billion budget deficit. Yet the federal health care reform package just adopted in Washington, DC will possibly help the state’s Health and Human Services budget. Though it seems kind of counterproductive that the money passed to expand health care at the federal level would be used to balance our state budget, the fact that the health care bill may provide federal dollars for programs Minnesota spends on now could have a positive effect on our budget. That would enable Minnesota to reduce budget expenditures for medical programs helping the indigent without reducing service to those in need. Also, there are additional federal stimulus dollars that are still being calculated which could help Minnesota resolve most of its remaining budget problems. Therefore, the Legislature is taking its time trying to make sure they understand the level of appropriations that are available from the federal government.
Another important external matter is the fact that the weather is warming up and the grass is turning green, which causes most politicians to begin thinking about the coming campaign season. All of the House and Senate districts are up for election. In order to conform to recent federal law changes, Minnesota's election season has been moved up. The federal absentee ballot requirements have resulted in the state’s primary election being moved from the first part of September to August 10. As a result, the filing dates have been moved up. Filing for legislative offices opens May 18 and closes June 1.
Because of the self-induced lack of focus, the Legislature has done very little on environment issues this week. The most significant environment event at the Legislature was the House Cultural and Outdoor Resources Finance Division having hearings on the nearly $59 million in outdoor heritage fund appropriations recommended by the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council. That bill (HF2882) was sponsored by Rep. Rick Hansen (DFL-South St. Paul). These recommendations contained 25 projects, from forest preservation to prairie restoration. The committee also heard HF3502, authored by Rep. Jean Wagenius (DFL-Minneapolis), which authorizes appropriations from the Clean Water Fund. The most controversial portion of that bill was an increase in the water processing fee for large water users in the 11-county metropolitan area to help supplement the funding provided by the Legacy Amendment for monitoring groundwater in that area. The committee plans on building an omnibus bill for the Legacy Amendment money early next week.
With the Legislature pre-occupied with these early April distractions, it is not surprising that the biggest news for the environment this week in Minnesota happened outside the Capitol walls. On Thursday we learned that our new Twins ballpark has been awarded silver-level certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) by the U.S. Green Building Council – the highest LEED score for any outdoor baseball park in the nation. The Twins constructed a ballpark that is a fabulous facility with nice green touches. Hopefully the Legislature can show some vision by constructing an end to this challenging session that also has some nice green touches. Go Twins.
