With the legislative session in its final hours, Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk said Monday night he will not end the session until they pass a measure to pay for a State Capitol restoration.
Bakk: Not going home 'without the Capitol being done'
Legislative session deadlocks in final hours over state borrowing proposal to pay for Capitol restoration.
May 21, 2013 at 1:16AM
"It appears the House was willing to go home without the Capitol, but that's just not acceptable to me," said Bakk, DFL-Cook. "I was not going to go home without the Capitol being done."
House Republicans were able to defeat a $800 million borrowing package that included the Capitol renovation and a raft of other projects.
House Democrats have been trying to cobble together a stripped-down measure with only the Capitol and a few other projects that the GOP could embrace.
In a procedural quirk, state borrowing measures must originate in the House. Overnight, the Senate took the unusual step of passing a state borrowing proposal to pay $132 million for the state Capitol restoration.
The House rejected the measure, starting a frantic round of backroom meetings between legislative leaders to broker a deal.
Bakk said he won't pass another budget measure until a Capitol restoration proposal is complete.
That will set in motion a frantic final few hours to finish the session by the mandatory midnight adjournment.
"This building has got to get taken care of," Bakk said, standing in the nearly-empty Senate chambers.
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