ST. PAUL — A Senate committee has taken one high-profile and controversial measure and tacked it on to another, adding racino as a funding source for a new Vikings stadium.

Sen. Sean Nienow, R-Cambridge, offered the amendment Wednesday, to use a “proven, across-the-nation funding mechanism” instead of counting on tax revenue from electronic pulltabs, which he said was based on “fairies and foo-foo dust.”

Members of the Finance Committee voted to include both funding sources in the bill, and later voted 9-5 to send the amended bill without recommendation to the Taxes Committee. It wasn’t clear Wednesday night when the issue would come up in Taxes. After Taxes, the bill is expected to go to the Senate floor.

In the House, the bill is poised to go the floor anytime, but Speaker Kurt Zellers said Wednesday he’s waiting to hear from the bill authors that they have 34 Republican votes, or half the amount required to pass it.

On top of the racino development, the Capitol got a jolt of star power Wednesday with a visit from Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, linebacker Chad Greenway and center John Sullivan, who met with the governor and lawmakers and expressed support for a new $975 million stadium.

Racino, which would add slot machines at horse-racing tracks, has been proposed at the Capitol for years but has been blocked by tribal casino interests and anti-gambling groups. It was rejected last month in a Senate committee, but backers predicted it would rise again this session.

The funding it brings is significant. A recent state fiscal note estimated tax revenue generated by racino would be $132 million per year in 2015.

But adding it would cost needed political support, said Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, sponsor of the stadium bill in the Senate. She called it “a serious blow to the bill” and said “it will have to be taken out.”

Gov. Mark Dayton has been pushing hard for the stadium, but a spokeswoman said she couldn’t say whether he’d sign a stadium bill that included racino.

Earlier Wednesday, Dayton said he didn’t think racino should be in the stadium plan. If it’s challenged in court, you’d have to put off selling bonds till the legal process was through, he said. “Racino’s got its own set of issues, but I don’t think they should be tied in with the stadium.”

Much of the discussion at Wednesday’s Senate committee meeting focused on the state’s means for paying its $398 million share of the stadium project. The state would authorize electronic forms of the paper pulltab and bingo games that are put on by charitable groups now to support their programs, and it would collect tax revenue from that new activity.

There is already lawful gaming on the books, said Rosen. “We’re just modernizing this revenue stream. She said the revenue estimates are conservative and predicted “we will be able to pay off our debt service at a quicker pace.”

Sen. Mike Parry, R-Waseca, said he’s concerned that the revenues depend on people using their “spendable income” to play charitable games, which is not a consistent source.

Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, said he wanted more information on which demographic groups are doing most of the gambling before voting on the stadium bill. “I think the public should understand who is paying the taxes,” he said.

Revenue Commissioner Myron Frans said he did not have that information.

Under the stadium plan, the state would give back some of the new tax revenue to the charities.

In the Senate bill, about $13 million would go to the charities, with $59 million remaining with the state.

The House bill is more generous to the charities: The state and charities would split the $72 million.

King Wilson, executive director of Allied Charities of Minnesota, said the charities prefer the House plan but that “we’re moving in the right direction” in the Senate.

A provision added Tuesday that would provide loan-forgiveness for St. Paul’s RiverCenter was taken out of the bill Wednesday, over the objection of Sen. Richard Cohen, DFL-St. Paul and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman.

“We’re not asking for direct parity. We’re not asking for dollar for dollar,” Coleman told committee members. But “if you feed one twin and you starve the other, one of them is going to die.”

An attempt by Hann to strip language from the bill that exempts the project from charter limitations in Minneapolis failed.

The Minneapolis city charter has a provision calling for a public referendum on sports stadium projects costing more than $10 million.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said the referendum is not required for the stadium project whether the language is in the bill or not, since the sales taxes used are imposed and collected by the state without the city’s involvement.

But he said removing the language – as has been done in the House bill – could complicate spending on renovating the Target Center.

In addition to the $10 million cap, there is another provision in the city charter that requires a referendum for any nonstadium capital bonding project of $15 million or more.

Before the Senate Finance committee began discussing the Vikings stadium bill Wednesday morning, the chair of the Taxes committee said she would like it to come to her committee when Finance is done.

That would slow the bill’s progress through the Senate and is expected to be a challenging committee for stadium backers.

Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, issued a statement saying “The Vikings Stadium proposal that passed the Senate Jobs Committee contains provisions that require the consideration of the Senate Tax Committee.”

On Monday, in the Rules and Administration committee hearing, Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, said he thought the stadium bill should go to Taxes but Ortman said then it did not need to.

Taxes has two Republicans – Roger Chamberlain and Warren Limmer – who have voted against the plan in committee, and longtime stadium opponent John Marty, DFL-Roseville, sits on the panel as well.

But stadium bill sponsor Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, also sits on Taxes, as does Geoff Michel, R-Edina, chair of the committee that passed the bill Tuesday.

Senate Finance became the sixth committee in the Legislature to approve the stadium plan.

So far, there have been three committee votes in which individual members’ votes were tallied. In one of those it lost, and in the other two it won.

The other three have been voice votes.

Even if the bill gets through committees in both chambers, passing on the floor would be a new question.

The House has 134 members. There is currently a vacancy, so it’s 72 Republicans and 61 Democrats. The GOP holds 54 percent of the seats and the Democrats 46 percent. It would take 68 votes for a majority.

If they put up the votes proportionate to their representation in the body, the Republicans would put up 37 votes and the Democrats 31.

The Senate has 67 members, 37 Republicans and 30 Democrats. A proportionate stadium vote in the Senate would mean 19 Republican votes and 15 Democrats.

Senate GOP spokesman Steve Sviggum has said Republicans expect the parties to each put up 17 votes.

Minority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, has said he’s planning to put up 12 Democrats, which is the number of Republicans who voted for the Twins stadium bill in 2006.

The full Senate did approve a Vikings stadium bill in 2006, but that stadium was removed in conference committee in an agreement that called for new facilities for the Twins and University of Minnesota football Gophers.

Team officials have said they were promised after 2006 that their stadium would be dealt with the following year, and they’ve used that to add pressure on the Legislature to act this session.

Along with the state contribution, About $150 million would come from taxes otherwise directed to the Minneapolis Convention Center and $427 million from the Vikings. The 65,000-seat stadium could be reach by the 2016 season.