Mr. Dahle Goes to St. Paul

To give you an idea as to how fast things are moving at the Capitol this past week, I moved a bill through committee this past Thursday without even being there.  It was one of those days where I typically have a day full of committees, but we fell further behind with some extended debate on the Senate floor.  We knew there would be some serious discussion about compensation for the 35W bridge victims and survivors, but a few other seemingly simple bills stalled on the floor in extended discussion as well.  All of this compacted the committee schedules that afternoon.   I had instructed my legislative assistant to let me know when my Senate version of the Dan Patch RR bill came up in the transportation committee so I could step out of my Commerce committee to make my arguments.  We weren’t sure we would be up in an hour or later that evening.  We had good testifiers ready to go on the bill.  The mayor of Savage was ready to testify as was Northfield resident Kevin Allin, a commuter with a long time  interest in the Dan Patch commuter line, along with Judd Schetnan representing the Metropolitan Council.  Lucy Morgan, my LA, steps into my committee meeting and says the Dan Patch bill is up now!  I quickly excused myself from Room 123 of the Capitol and headed down a floor to Room 15 where the Transportation committee was meeting.  When I stepped into the room I could see they were heading into recess until 6pm.  Minutes before, the committee chair calling my name, noting my absence and the non-controversial nature of the bill, called on Senator Ann Rest to quickly present the bill.  She did.  No questions were asked, and the bill passed out of committee in about 2 minutes.

I thanked Senator Rest.  I thanked my testifiers for driving up to the Capitol that day.   While we didn’t get a chance to speak to the bill, we achieved our goal for now.  We will continue to make sure we repeal the “gag order” to study a commuter rail from Northfield to Minneapolis.  If this bill is eventually signed into law, we will once again see discussion and planning for transportation options, other than Hwy 52 or I35,  south of the metro area.  We are all optimistic about this first step.  While the actual Dan Patch line may be 20 or 30 years from reality, on this day we were able to fire up the engine and yell, “All aboard!”