The top D-F-Ler in the state Senate doesn’t appear receptive to Republicans’ offer to put a Democrat in the lieutenant governor’s office after Tina Smith leaves to replace Senator Al Franken in Washington. The state Constitution says when there’s a vacancy in the lieutenant governor’s office, the president of the state Senate fills it. That would be Paynesville Republican Michelle Fischbach but Republicans, rather than risking their slim one-vote majority in a special election in her district, prefer to name a Democrat as Senate president, who would then become lieutenant governor. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Bakk says about that, “My kind of first impulse is, seems like a waste of taxpayer money to hold a special session just to change the president of the Senate. Special sessions cost significant money to bring people in from all over the state.”
Bakk is scheduled to talk today with Senate Republican Majority Leader Paul Gazelka.
More in this interview from Thursday evening: