DFLer Sandra Pappas and Republican Karin Housley, the respective Senate leads on capital investment, emerged from days of bonding bill negotiations Sunday calling each other “besties.” Their representative counterparts, Fue Lee and Mary Franson, formed a unified “Team House” throughout the talks, as a colleague later put it.
The group formed working relationships long before the session’s home stretch. They toured the state together to assess local infrastructure needs last year, led committee hearings over the last three months and held late night deliberations over the bill in backrooms last week.
Related: Breaking down the bonding bill: Legislature approves $1.2 billion to fund infrastructure projects
All of it paid dividends when the four carried a $1.2 billion bonding bill through a tightly divided Legislature on the final day of the session.
Bipartisan by necessity
Bipartisanship was absent from the most-hot button issues at the Capitol this session, including gun control and policy responses to federal immigration enforcement. On bonding, however, conciliatory words from across the aisle were easy to find.
Part of that was a function of bonding bills needing three-fifths majorities to pass. There would be no bonding bill to write about, let alone the good vibes surrounding it, if it didn’t have bipartisan support.
Also helpful is how widespread infrastructure needs are in Minnesota. Water plants, roads and public buildings age in Republican and Democratic districts alike, prompting local governments to lobby representatives and senators for bonding funding.
To see this, scroll through the mix of cities receiving earmarks in the bill. You’ll find Minneapolis, which has about 400,000 people, and Ghent, which has about 400, on the list. Two vastly different communities have water infrastructure needs in common, and legislators recognized it by investing in them this year.
These are practical reasons explaining why lawmakers who disagree on most other issues vote the same way on bonding. But nothing says they have to say nice things about each other, which is what capital investment leads went out of their way to do.
A (relatively) amiable process by choice
Set for retirement this year, Pappas had warm words for Housley, Lee and Franson during a capital investment committee hearing Sunday afternoon. Housley was her “bonding bestie,” and she described her relationship with House leaders as a “wonderful partnership.”
The St. Paul Democrat acknowledged how much it would mean to pass the bill with them in her final session.
“To do three bonding bills out of four years, that’s a big success,” she said.
Capital investment committees are unique in how much time they spend together. Members pile on a bus for statewide tours, a trek that most recently covered 127 projects in 82 cities over nine days, Pappas said.
Housley, a Stillwater Republican, will be one of the speakers at Pappas’ retirement party later this year. She brought it up on the Senate floor as the clock ticked down on the session Sunday, saying she’ll save most of her remarks about Pappas for the event so they have enough time to pass the bill.
“I will say a bunch of nice things about you at your retirement party,” she said. “It’s been a pleasure to work with you and I am going to miss you next year and in the years to come doing the bonding bill.”
Around the same time, over on the House floor, Franson was telling Lee how much respect she has for him.
“This bill would not be as good as it is without your assistance,” said the Republican from Alexandria.
Bonding bills and bipartisanship go hand in hand, Franson said. “This is a very partisan job at times, but in capital investment we leave our labels at the door,” she said.
Rep. Luke Frederick, DFL-Mankato, a vice chair on the capital investment, backed up her sentiment.
“Watching chair Lee and Franson negotiate with the Senate, it wasn’t partisan,” he said. “It was no longer Democrat or Republican. It was Team House.”
To be clear, negotiations on what would be included in the $1.2 billion package surely didn’t look like lighthearted coffee meet-ups among friends. Amiable working relationships got tested when four legislative caucuses and Gov. Tim Walz’s office went into a room with competing priorities and only so much borrowing power to fund it.
Pappas touched on these power struggles when talking about the governor’s team. She praised them, but also joked that they were “kind of a pain in the ass” in negotiations. Housley, for her part, joked that the House leads were “pains in the asses” before thanking them.
Related: HCMC bailout fine print, the bonding bill, and a last push to police the immigration police: What the Minnesota Legislature accomplished in its final hours
So the process wasn’t immune from politics. More than most bills, though, Democrats and Republicans pushed for mutually beneficial outcomes on bonding.
“Just think about the impact we can make as members of this body and Legislature to really help make it affordable for all of our communities across the entire state,” Lee said to colleagues on the House floor before the bill passed.
Pappas won’t be part of future bonding committees. In retirement, she hopes her successor and the other leads can maintain yearly bonding bills to keep up with Minnesota’s infrastructure needs.
“We take care of our homes,” she said. “This is our home.”
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