Good evening there, folks. . .apologies for the lack of new material today. Working the midnight shift at the ol' "day job" has thrown my rhythm off a bit, but now that I've got a couple of days off I can try to get things sorted out. On the bright side, that just means a little more emphasis on Ted's awesome interview with Lester Bagley about the Vikings' stadium situation, which is always nice.
Speaking of Mr. Bagley. . .and therefore, by extension, the Vikings' new stadium. . .it looks like the legislature is going to have to come back for a special session in order to get the issue settled. The current session of the Minnesota legislature ends tomorrow, and the odds of the Vikings' stadium bill reaching the floor tomorrow currently lies somewhere between slim and none, and I'm pretty sure I just saw Slim get up and leave the room.
Only Governor Dayton has the power to call the legislature back for a special session. . .however, once they are called back, the legislature can stay in session for as long as it takes to get all of their current issues resolved. The state is still at an impasse on the state budget as well, so there will definitely be a special legislative session called. . .it's simply a matter of when it's going to be.
In a story that I found in the St. Cloud Times earlier today, there's a little tidbit that one would think that the pro-stadium coalition could probably use to try to persuade some folks.
Minnesota has the dubious distinction of being the state with the largest construction industry job loss in the nation.
Hey, you know what would create a metric assload of construction jobs? A new Vikings stadium would, that's what! I mean, I'm no political wonk or anything, but jobs are generally considered good, right?
Ah, well, we'll see what happens with this special session. I'm guessing there won't be too much of a delay between the end of the regular session and the start of a special session, what with the whole budget thing needing to be settled, but you never know.