Latest political moves offers some surprises

It’s no surprise that the House Republicans voted Thursday for the 33^rd time to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or the health care reform.

Even the right-leaning media declared it a symbolic act and I guess it was to re-affirm House GOP opposition to the law after the Supreme Court and one of their own, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, was the deciding vote upholding the law.

There were some surprises though in other political arenas.

It was somewhat surprising the Gov. Mark Dayton decided he would make the final decisions on which of some 90 projects would get a piece of the $47.5 million in bonding money the Legislature allocated as a kind of open-ended, competition for the funds.

In a conference call with DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips, we learned he was not all that excited about having the final decision, as was to be the initial plan.

He told The Free Press “It defies logic” that the Legislature left it up to DEED.

A day later, Dayton announced he would be making the final decision after reviewing DEED's recommendations.

It's in a way new unprecedented power given to a governor, and especially surprising since it was the opposite party that gave him that power.

That Dayton will decide may or may not be good for Mankato’s request for $14 million in bonding for the Verizon Wireless Center expansion.

It may be good because Dayton is well aware of how many times we’ve asked for the money and been denied while other very similar projects around the state have been granted funds.

There was no subtly among Democrats in asserting our projects were long denied by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty through line item vetoes simply because Mankato was represented by Democrats and other areas were represented by Republicans.

Democrats voiced the same criticism even stronger this past year when Mankato was left out of the bonding bills while projects in Rochester and St. Cloud, represented by Republicans, were left in.

So it seems Dayton would be sympathetic to the nature of that battle and how Mankato has been on the losing end for no good reason.

On the other hand, the governor could see the recent Highway 14 project he helped approve as one that gives us our “share” of state dollars.

Stay tuned.