EDIT: It is my understanding that the debate on the Stadium issue will begin somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 PM Central time. Yes, we will start a separate posting for that and, yes, we will embed the video here as we have for all the other committee meetings thus far. -Chris
Over in St. Paul today, I would argue that the most important day in Minnesota Vikings history is about to unfold. The House of Representatives will debate and then vote on the Vikings Stadium bill sometime this afternoon or evening. To my knowledge, there is no time set, because no one knows how long the debate will be. But there will be debate. Passionate, contentious debate.
For those of you who want to watch this historic debate and vote, the link is right here: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/htv/schedule.asp Once it begins, we'll probably start a new thread just for that.
I've been trying to get vote totals, but there are only two pieces of information I can give you on that. On Friday, Gov. Mark Dayton thought it would pass by 2 or 3 votes, and he had heard the Speaker of the House Kurt Zellers privately told NFL commissioner Roger Goodell that there were enough votes to pass.
Speaker Zellers later said that wasn't true, and that he said no such thing to the Commish.
Over ther weekend, Vikings fans have come out of the woodwork to let the pols in St. Paul know how important this team is to us and to the state, and it's paid off with at least one switch-- Rep Ryan Winkler, who voted no on the stadium in the House Government Operations and Elections Committee, which was the House committee that initially killed the bill, will now vote yes. His reasoning is that a flawed jobs bill is better than no jobs bill.
It's not too late to contact Representatives to RESPECTFULLY urge them to vote yes. If you're not sure who your representative is, go to this website:
http://www.gis.leg.mn/OpenLayers/districts/
Type in your address, and your state representative and state senator will pop up as the first two names. If you want to contact individual members of the House, click right here to take you to a list of Minnesota House members, and urge them to vote yes.
Use this thread to identify House members who are undecided, so we can call and email them and urge them to vote yes, and keep a 51 year tradition in Minnesota. At this point, failure is not an option.
We'll also use this thread to identify any breaking stadium news, updated vote counts, and if it warrants, we'll put a post up about it.
And hey, one more thing. Over these last few dyas, I've never been prouder to call myself a fan of the Minnesota Vikings. Your passion, your activism, and your love for this team has never been more apparent, so let's keep it up through this week and get this thing done.
SKOL VIKINGS. Skol today, Skol tomorrow, Skol forever.