With just hours left in the session, and major bills still in limbo, Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk fired a shot across the House's bow.
A video, posted by the nonpartisan Senate Media Service, went up on YouTube Monday evening, showing Bakk pointedly wondering when the House planned to send the Senate the tax and bonding bills. The legislative year ends at midnight.
The Senate DFL Caucus gleefully reposted a copy of the video on its own site, but yanked it down almost as quickly. The bonding debate in the House began shortly afterward.
The video shows an exchange between Bakk and Minority Leader David Hann, both pointedly wondering why there had been no messages from the House, as of 6:30 p.m., about pending legislation.
"We're waiting for the House to send us the tax bill," Bakk says in the minute-and-a-half-long video. "We sent them the bonding bill last night...They made a decision not to concur with the Senate, but what's interesting is that they didn't appoint conferees and send a message back to us."
The bonding bill is a sore spot between the DFL-controlled House and Senate. The House tried, and failed to pass an $800 million bonding bill last month. But some House members balked when the Senate sent a scaled-down $132 million bonding offer of its own to the House Sunday night.
