We expected a lot of things in the wake of this transportation bill passing — safer bridges, higher taxes and, yes, some Election Day changes. We didn’t expect our governor and his political party to take such a low road in response to six votes cast for Team Minnesota, for once, instead of Team GOP.
Harsh words from the St. Cloud Times:
I was reminded today that in 1987, the DFL Speaker of the House, Fred Norton, removed DFL legislators from the House Tax Committee because they voted against the DFL’s tax bill.
“House Speaker Fred Norton removed two veteran DFL legislators from the powerful House Tax Committee Thursday after they voted against the majority’s tax bill a day earlier.
Norton said the votes cast by Rep. Tom Osthoff, St. Paul, and Rep. Linda Scheid, Brooklyn Park, ‘capped off a whole lot of lack of cooperation’ by the two legislators who have reputations for independence.
Norton, a St. Paul DFLer, said that Osthoff and Scheid, as members of the committee, were warned that all DFL tax committee members and chairs of other committees were expected to uphold the caucus position and vote for the tax bill.
‘They didn’t see that they had an obligation to the caucus,’ Norton said yesterday in an interview.
Osthoff, in his 13th year in the House, and Scheid, in her seventh, said they voted against the tax increase because it would work against a majority of the residents in their districts. ” Source: Star Tribune, May 1, 1987
The gang of six: We’re voting our conscience
Seifert: Your fired
SC Times: Seifert is petty
Public: Oh snap!
Garafalo: Seifert like me again
“The Pioneer Press quoted Pawlenty as follows on this issue: “If you are going to be a team, you know, then there are going to be some team rules and team expectations, and I’ll leave that up to the caucus leaders how they are going to address this further.”“
Now we get to see what the real Pawlenty is like. Nothing like a loss or two to show what lies beneath the smile and baseball cap.
And what do we get. Timminy Hall. So Boss Tim (aka McCain’s Poodle) has told his players:
‘We’ll make them some rules and expectations they can’t refuse. There is no “I” in team. There ain’t no “U” either.’
Not sure why, but this ‘team’ spirit speech reminded me of a movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkJmSUhNBHY