The conflict between
Governor Dayton and Senator Tom Bakk supposedly started with commissioner's
salaries. The Governor has proposed an increase in commissioner's
salaries. Governor Dayton stated he no longer trusts Bakk as this
was something previously agreed upon. Bakk has posed as a populist
budget watcher protecting the public purse from the supposed profligate
Governor. One item, Bakk as defender of the public purse, is provably false. The other, the conflict starting over this, most likely isn't, considering what the Governor has dealt with for years.
The local party organ newspaper, the
Mesabi Daily News, better named the “ Pravda of the Iron Range”
both for its commitment to truth and the local elite's shared
opinion, ran an editorial supporting Bakk and a “vote your opinion”
public poll designed to target ranting rangers against the Governor
and supporting Bakk. Fortunately, for the public, and unfortunately
for the family members, it's readership shrinks with every obituary
announcement.
Bakk is no populist. Calling him DFL is
an even greater stretch, akin to calling the Clintonite Democrats
“progressive”. His protection of the public purse has included
90 million dollars for the Senate office building ( One wonders if there will be Soviet realist style statues, with naked muscular senators holding picks and shovels to the sky), funding the water
supply for the poverty stricken owners of Lutsen Mountains, and ensuring
individuals and businesses getting funds from the IRRRB do so in
secret lest the public know some get millions for doing nothing,
While various social stances and other policies deserve approval, the
fact is the district votes strongly for these and politician is
likely to support them out of necessity.
Most likely, this argument has been
festering for a long time, as Bakk and other Range politicos have
extracted personal programs and funding for decades. One example is
their collaboration with Republicans over the sell off of state trust
lands in the Government shutdown compromise of 2011, designed to hand
over public resources to extraction industries.
Perhaps the Governor's tolerance of the
lies finally ended. His, and the public's, should have ended long ago.
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