After a pair of marathon floor debates, the House and Senate passed legislation this week authorizing construction of a $975 million stadium for the Minnesota Vikings.

The publicly subsidized Minnesota Vikings stadium proposed for downtown Minneapolis survived a Senate committee on Friday evening with more DFLers than Republicans voting for it.

For all the fanfare that attended Thursday’s announcement of an agreement among the main players in the Vikings stadium saga, the plan as presented begged as many critical questions as it answered.

Despite the best efforts of advocates for a new Minnesota Vikings stadium, a series of deadlines to advance a bill for a new professional football stadium have been undone by a steady stream of delays.

Since Gov. Mark Dayton’s administration unveiled its analysis of the risks associated with the proposed Minnesota Vikings stadium site in Arden Hills on Wednesday, opinion has varied as to whether it dealt a fatal blow to the Ramsey County/Vikings plan.

The numbers contained in a much-anticipated Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission report will require the Minnesota Vikings and Ramsey County to come up with more cash in order to sell their stadium deal at the Legislature. And that fact appears to lend credence to widely circulated reports that a renewed push from Minneapolis interests is in the works.

As the Minnesota Vikings worked through preseason practice last week in Mankato, Ramsey County commissioners and team officials were doing intensive work on the specifics of a proposal to help build a new football stadium for the team in Arden Hills.

In 2007, the commission tapped the San Francisco-based Roma Design Group for a comprehensive look at potential redevelopment of the area around the Metrodome.

Gov. Mark Dayton has tapped Ted Mondale to run the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission. Mondale served in the state Senate and was Jesse Ventura's Metropolitan Council chairman.

More people voted absentee for the primary this year than have in two decades, despite switching the date from mid September to Aug. 10.