Get to Know the Candidates: Minnesota Senate District 24

Incumbent State Senator John Jasinski and challenger Roger Steinkamp stopped by KDHL today to give their opinions on a variety of issues.

Steinkamp (DFL) repeated questions about Jasinski's (IR) leadership in the Minnesota Senate.  He used the bonding bill as an example saying,"It took us what, four or five special sessions to get the bonding bill passed.  Oh for goodness sake, Why didn't we get that done sooner?"

Jasinski responded the bonding bill is put together in the House and then sent to the Senate typically for their input.  This year was much different.  "Republicans actually voted on a bonding bill back in March.  It was a great bill.  $1.35 billion dollars.  Lots of infrastructure.  Roads, bridges, all those things that we wanted.  It was financially responsible because obviously we wanted to make sure we weren't taking on too much debt.  That bill failed in the Senate because we couldn't get enough democrats to vote for it."

Jasinski added, "The bill that actually got passed had everything in that bill.  That was our bill.  The Senate Republican's bill.  House Democrats added a bunch of stuff on top of there and ended up getting it to $1.8 billion dollars.  They passed it and went sine die, which basically says they shut  their session down so if we made any changes to that bill it was dead."

Heitkamp stated, "If you want to blame the House go ahead but when you're in the legislature and any setting like that, and I've been in these settings.  You can exert influence behind and particularly when you're in a position of leadership.  So yes you're not a member of the House but the House members are also representatives of the communities and you need to respect that.

Heitkamp added, "If you are really intent on pushing something through, work behind the scenes.

You can listen to the program in it's entirety below: