Capitol Retort: Big bonding bill; long wait; blood bomb

Question 1: Anyone listening to the House debate over the bonding/tax/supplemental budget bill would have thought it was going down to defeat. Only a few Republicans spoke for it, and those speaking against it were virulently opposed. Yet it got 25 GOP votes, 19 more than needed. What dynamic was at play there?

Nick Zerwas, lobbyist, former GOP House member: I think we witnessed some election politics on both ends. I think a few weeks before an election, if you have significant projects in that bill, you’ve got to show up in the green column [voting yes]. But you don’t necessarily want video out there of you giving it praise. You want the cover of it passing and of you supporting the projects in your districts, but you don’t necessarily want a video floating around on Twitter praising the largest bonding bill in the history of the state of Minnesota, if you’re a Republican.

Peter Bell, conservative writer: I tend to think the dynamic at play is that, basically, a bonding bill is an infrastructure bill. And I think Republicans and Democrats understand, particularly in the pandemic when you have a significant amount of unemployment, that we need to put people to work in various infrastructure projects. Now, we all can cherry pick and say there’s some things that we liked more than others and how much pork there is in it—of which, I am sure there is some. But on balance, I think bonding bills locally and infrastructure bills nationally are going to gain a fair amount of political traction.

Patrick Coleman, Minnesota Historical Society acquisitions librarian: I think the dynamic at play there was the election. That’s not an original thought, but I think the jobs aspect of it was just too compelling to avoid.

Melisa Franzen, attorney, DFL state senator: I just think it’s pick your poison: Either you vote for it because you’re for it, or you vote for it because you know you’re going to lose more seats if you vote against it, right? I just think the GOP had no other choice but to pass it. If they didn’t, they were just going to count more losses in the election.

Question 2: The Senate passed that same bill with only three no votes. Why do you think it took until October to accomplish those three pieces of business — a bonding bill, tax deal and supplemental budget — when everyone knew way back in February that those were the primary jobs that needed to get done?

Zerwas: My understanding is that it took until now for the [Section 179] capital write-off tax provision to be a part of the deal. And that’s what Republican House leadership needed to let the votes go.

Bell: The governor’s special authority was in question. And there were other things complicating it that dragged it out. But at the end of the day, I think cooler heads prevailed and people said, let’s get down to the basics of what we’re supposed to be doing here. And they actually accomplished it, which I applaud them for.

Coleman: That’s a great question. I kind of wondered that myself, along with wondering about all these special sessions where nothing got done. I think it was just a misplay on the part of the Republicans, hoping to hold out as long as possible to wring some concessions. But I think it was inevitable and they should have done it a long time ago. What they should be doing now is borrowing money for the next 25 years. The interest is never going to go lower. Why don’t we just get a great big loan and pay it off in the coming years?

Franzen: Because the Republicans lost their leverage. At the end, they realized that they just lost the opportunity to get more out of it, I guess. They got Section 179. That’s good policy, but I agreed with [Deputy Senate Majority Leader Michelle] Benson in terms of the timing — it’s spending money that we probably are going to have to have harder, inevitable conversations about in January. But that’s all they could get out of it. They were trying to use it as a negotiating tool and they waited until too close to the election.

Question 3: When Connecticut police collected DNA from a robbery suspect, he explained why they would find his DNA a match with blood found at the scene: A phlebotomist had collected his blood and then dropped it on the scene from an airplane. Should this suspect be exonerated simply on the basis of creativity?

Zerwas: I haven’t heard that creative of an explanation for DNA being valuable evidence as a part of a crime scene since O.J. Simpson’s attorney Barry Scheck explained that a crazy analyst planted evidence on O.J.’s sock. It’s not the first wild story to explain concrete physical evidence that I’ve heard, in my background at the crime lab in Anoka County. But you have to admit it’s pretty creative. [Editor’s note: Before he was elected to the Minnesota House, Zerwas worked as an analyst at the county crime lab.]

Bell: [Laughs.] No, I don’t think he should be exonerated based on that! But it is unusual, I will say that.

Coleman: [Laughs.] I think that’s a definite possibility. He’s got some potential. And I think the Air Force needs to hire this phlebotomist. I don’t know what bombsight he’s using, but it’s not the Norden. [Editor’s note: The Norden M series was a supposedly precise bombsight that had a manufacturing plant in Northeast Minneapolis. It saw service from WWII through the Vietnam War.]

Franzen: [Laughs.] Wow, I haven’t heard that one. But I’m sure that the judge has heard worse and with more creativity. So no.