Could this be Mankato's year in bonding?

For those who've been watching Mankato's state bonding proposals being shot down for a decade or so, the news on Tuesday that Gov. Mark Dayton included Mankato's projects in his bonding bill was cause for celebration.

Dayton has included the $14.5 million Mankato Civic Center expansion project in his proposed $750 million bonding proposal, and this year it looks like there are at least some Republicans who control the Legislature willing to consider it as well.

The Republican caucus has taken a somewhat hard line on bonding proposals in the last few years in what I see as a pretty significant departure from how Republicans viewed this in the past.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty lead this new era of Republican thinking urging in his first term that bonding proposal have "statewide significance." That, in essence, put the old kibosh on what used to be a "spread the projects around the state so everyone benefits" idea.

"Statewide significance" was a good sounding political position but it didn't always play pure.

I remember when Rep. Bob Gunther of Fairmont urged the passage of a new Blue Earth fire hall as part of the bonding bill. He said Pawlenty challenged him and said "Gunther, how does this have statewide importance?"

Gunther replied that the fire hall had "interstate" importance because Blue Earth firefighters every now and then helped out with an Iowa fire being near the border. A bit of stretch, if you ask me.

The fire hall was approved.

So now we have Rochester Republican Sen. Dave Senjem not only the Senate Republican majority leader but also chairman of the Bonding Committee. That's fairly convenient for a number of groups.

When he was in Mankato on Tuesday, he said his philosophy on bonding would be to focus on higher education and other state infrastructure that needed repair or maintenance. It shouldn't be a jobs bill, as it has been described by Gov. Dayton.

So, Mankato leaders, playing the political winds a bit, have crafted our Civic Center expansion project as one that will bolster facilities for MSU hockey, with both men's and women's teams using the Civic Center as their main game AND practice facility, leaving All Seasons Arena.

I don't blame the Mankato folks one bit. When you've been hammered the last few years with a reasonable proposal, why not frame the message a little bit differently as one that jives with the majority leader's ideas never hurts.

When reason doesn't work, try politics.

And believe me, I support the project and I support Senjem, He's a very reasonable guy. We've long ago paid our own way on this project.

Of course, this sets up a fairly interesting scenario as House Republican leaders have said the bonding bill shouldn't be about "pet projects." I wonder if they were referring to Bemidji, Duluth, Crookston and St. Cloud civic center projects approved by Pawlenty and Republicans in the past few years. Hmmm.

Those projects, like the Blue Earth fire hall, must have been beyond the  "pet project" stage and into the projects of "statewide importance."

It was interesting that while Pawlenty vetoed Mankato Civic Center proposals for years, he found time to enjoy a John Mellencamp concert down here. Apparently drawing business from St. Paul and the governor's mansion does not constitute statewide importance. But I digress.

The plot will definitely thicken here when Senjem explains how his Rochester civic center expansion is or is not a "pet project" or one that focuses on state infrastructure rebuilding and the Mankato project does not.

Hopefully, Speaker Kurt Zellers will not ask too many tough questions, or if he asks them, perhaps he will accept, though not agree, with the answers, as Pawlenty did for Gunther years ago.

Of course, they could always just kill the Mankato proposal because of the wisecracking newspaper editor in Mankato.