MNpublius.com

The question still remains: What the heck is going on with Thomson West? Yesterday it was reported that Governor Tim Pawlenty had slipped in a $9 million tax break for an unnamed company to develop a campus in Eagan. We were initially puzzled as to why this company had been singled out for such exceptional treatment, but today some pieces of the puzzle are coming together:

On April 10, 2006, seven top executives of Thomson West each wrote $1,000 checks to the reelection campaign of Gov. Tim Pawlenty. That money came on top of $2,000 that another executive of the firm and his wife contributed to the campaign a few months earlier.

The contributions triggered concern Wednesday among DFLers as they considered the governor’s proposal to give Thomson West, a legal publishing firm based in Eagan, a tax break on an expansion. [Strib]

The Governor insists that there is no connection between the contributions he received from the company execs and his sudden insistence on tax breaks for the company; hmm…

Look, I’m willing to give the Governor the shadow of the doubt here; after all, this is a potential $100 million project right here in our back yards. So, its conceivable that, outside of the contributions, that the company’s expansion may outweigh the problems of allowing them such a huge tax break.

It is clear, however, that the Governor has an ethical problem on his hands and should recuse himself from the negotiations with the company. Thomson West insists that it will not develop in Minnesota without these tax incentives but a third party must step in to ensure that it is the needs of Minnesota and not the needs of Pawlenty’s war-chest that guide the negotiations.