ICYMI: National Journal: Michele Bachmann’s Bridge Crosses Some Party Lines

(Source: Lindsey Boerma, National Journal)

She’s a vocal champion of less government spending and a scourge of Democratic policies. But, hand-in-hand with some unlikely allies, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has embarked on an even more unlikely mission: Unsnarling a decades-long political logjam to win approval of a $700 million bridge across the St. Croix River.

[This sentence omitted to comply with House Franking requirements.] [Bachmann] is a deficit hawk who has said she will not vote to raise the debt ceiling without sweeping cuts in spending. But she’s struck alliances across the aisle to enact state and federal money set aside for the long-delayed project back home.

Bachmann told National Journal she sees her role in the effort as a political asset; proof that she’s more than just a knee-jerk ideologue.

“I think it’s important for people to know that I’m not highly partisan and that I can work with other people,” she said, citing her work with Democrats such as Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Wisconsin’s Rep. Ron Kind and Sen. Herb Kohl to win approval for the bridge between the two states.

“They would be considered, in my opinion, probably more far left than centrist; I’m considered more right than centrist from my political party,” Bachmann said. “But I give a lot of credit to my Democratic colleagues who are willing to take the heat from radical environmentalists … to put aside ideology, because we’ve got to build a bridge.”

At issue is an 80-year-old, two-lane bridge in Bachmann’s suburban district that is the scene of daily traffic jams and routine flooding. Lawmakers from both states have been trying to replace the bridge since the 1950s but have been blocked by the Sierra Club.

Meanwhile, Bachmann argues, commuters are left to suffer the inconvenience of an outmoded bridge. “Damn what the people of Wisconsin think, damn what the people of Minnesota think, or the fact that we have to have this vital link to get across,” the congresswoman said. “What are we supposed to do, go back to ferries?”

Bachmann’s one-sentence-long House bill would not appropriate funding for the bridge—that, she stressed, has long been collecting cobwebs in Minnesota’s and Wisconsin’s state banks. Instead, it would effectively revive a 2005 evaluation by the National Park Service deeming a new, four-lane highway bridge in compliance with the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. (Klobuchar’s Senate bill, titled an “authorization act,” essentially does the same.)

About $160 million of the money that Minnesota has set aside for the bridge comes from the federal government, according to Kevin Gutknecht, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation. He emphasized that the funds are part the regular highway budget and have nothing to do with earmarks.

“I suspect what people are worried about spending-wise is earmarks, and there are no earmarks associated with this project,” Gutknecht said.

On Wisconsin’s end, Gov. Scott Walker signed into law last week a bill that frees $225 million in general-obligation bonds, previously caged by a prerequisite that the state receive a $75 million federal grant before going forward with the project.

If Congress doesn’t pass legislation approving the bridge construction by September 30, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton has warned that the money set aside for it will be allocated to other projects. That gives Bachmann and her Democratic allies three months to see if they can succeed.

[The final sentence has been omitted to comply with House of Representatives Franking requirements.]

This article appeared in the Wednesday, July 6, 2011 edition of National Journal Daily.

                                                              ###