Two DFL Senators – Bev Scalze and Barb Goodwin, both women and long-time critics of back-slappin’ boys-club-member-in-good-standing Tom Bakk – are retiring from the Senate:<\/p>\n
…For Scalze and others, the problems go beyond the disappointment of passing a budget that looked much different after Bakk and Daudt emerged from days of private negotiations with a deal in hand. It\u2019s how leadership handled the final days of session.<\/p>\n
Sen. Barb Goodwin, DFL-Columbia Heights, said many budget bills were controlled unilaterally, with little input or outreach to herself and other members. She and Scalze declined to put a number on how many Senate Democrats are upset, saying only to \u201clook at the votes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Enough Democrats voted against three of the state\u2019s seven budget bills that they required GOP votes to pass. Seven Democrats voted \u2018no\u2019 on three or more.<\/p>\n
Take the environment budget, which just 10 Democrats \u2014 and 25 Republicans \u2014 voted to pass. Scalze said the finished product contained a surprise law change she and other members couldn\u2019t stomach: exempting copper and nickel mines on the Iron Range from the state\u2019s solid waste regulations. Bakk and other Senate DFLers represent swaths of the Iron Range.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Bakk) gave up a lot of stuff that other members had worked real hard on while he was getting everything he wanted for the Iron Range,\u201d Goodwin said. \u201cThat kind of naked power is really not appreciated.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Nobody who’s seen Tom Bakk will ever use the term “naked power” casually again…<\/p>\n
…but the point is – wow. \u00a0It’s like the Dems have a war on women or something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two DFL Senators – Bev Scalze and Barb Goodwin, both women and long-time critics of back-slappin’ boys-club-member-in-good-standing Tom Bakk – are retiring from the Senate: …For Scalze and others, the problems go beyond the disappointment of passing a budget that looked much different after Bakk and Daudt emerged from days of private negotiations with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[320],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mndfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56592,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56591\/revisions\/56592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}