Capitol View for February 25

Good morning. February is just flying by!

Northstar could soon be no more. The commuter rail line between Minneapolis and Big Lake – long a symbol of transit lines that struggle to live up to ridership expectations – might be converted from a rail service to one dependent on buses. The Minnesota Department of Transportation and the Met Council said they’ve started to study a possible Northstar conversion . It comes as the line is again under legislative scrutiny. It serves a few hundred people per day, well short of the thousands it was envisioned to serve and, at times, did. Republicans, who have been most critical of the line since its inception, reacted by asking what took so long and how soon could the end come. “Northstar has been an over $320 million failed experiment,” said House Transportation Committee Chair Jon Koznick, R-Lakeville.

House Republicans again came up short of the 68 votes needed to pass a bill yesterday, with Democrats banding together against the effort. Lawmakers considered a proposed moratorium on new light rail transit projects until the Green Line extension project through the west metro suburbs is up and running. Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove, said the state should learn from the delayed rollout of the project and place a hold on construction of additional lines. “Now is the time to put a halt to this until Southwest light rail is open and we have learned the lessons of that boondoggle before we go down this road again,” she said. Democrats argued the bill was an effort to slow down the growth of public transportation and they said the moratorium would hit residents of Hennepin County, where the projects are based, the hardest. “House File 14 would not return any substantial amount of funding to state coffers, but it would artificially inflate costs borne by the taxpayers of Hennepin County by approximately $200 million,” Rep. Mike Freiberg, DFL-Golden Valley. “All this bill does is burn millions of dollars in an attempt to make a political point about fiscal responsibility.” With 67 Republicans and 66 Democrats, bills could continue to come to the floor and flounder without bipartisan buy-in.

Two state agencies are the latest to be on the hunt for office space. The newly created Department of Children, Youth and Families and the Department of Human Services advertised this week for proposals for leased space. The new agency is searching for 80,000 to 95,000 square feet within 10 miles of the Capitol that it hopes to be able to occupy by June 2026. The request for proposals says a range of criteria must be met – from “visually and acoustically private space” where confidential documents and information can be handled properly to “easily modified” space that can accommodate a hybrid work schedule. DHS is more flexible on location, either in the Twin Cities or a suburb close to the 494/694 loop. That agency wants more warehouse or production space than office space. Occupancy is preferred by Oct. 1, 2026. Last year it was the Department of Commerce and the Department of Natural Resources that had space plans pending to deal with post-pandemic workplace needs.

State government owns and occupies a lot of space, not only in St. Paul but across Minnesota. A 2022 Strategic Facilities Plan offered some of the details. That report, which was in part done to feed discussions into right-sizing the state government footprint for a post-pandemic world, offered a detailed look. While the data is dated some, it said the state owns a total of 36 million square feet in more than 6,000 buildings. Another 3.8 million square feet is leased. The space runs the gamut from offices to storage to prisons to vehicle exam facilities. The report recommended that each person who reports to an office fills about 175 to 200 square feet and there should be a shared workplace model of an average of 1.3 employees for every one work station due to the continuation of some level of remote or telework. The report included options for more aggressive space sharing.

Minnesota’s two Democratic senators are going out of their way to poke at Elon Musk, the cost-cutter in chief for President Donald Trump. Musk has been moving to aggressively chop the federal workforce with Trump’s blessing. An email to federal workers over the weekend demanded that employees describe their prior week accomplishment via email or risk termination. That’s the latest thing to prompt a court fight. Anyway, Sen. Tina Smith snagged headlines by taking to Musk’s social media platform to call it “the ultimate d**k boss move form Musk – except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a d**k.” Yesterday, on ABC’s “The View” it was Sen. Amy Klobuchar criticizing the Musk moves. She said the “shock and awe” strategy has only created disruption, confusion and problems for the federal government rather than the stated goal of making it more efficient. “If any worker right now is failing their probationary period in the United States government, it is Elon Musk, OK? That’s the guy,” she said.

Another familiar political face has been on the airwaves a lot lately although he’s not running for anything in 2026 so far as we know. Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been on CNN a few times in recent weeks to weigh in on Trump moves. Last week, he was on air the same day as Trump labeled himself “the king” and people were teasing the idea of him running for a third term. “I think we all know by now he has lots of grandiose thoughts, and not all of them are serious. And I also think he likes to have fun and goof around. And I think he's basically taunting the fact that people get all wound up about this.” Minnesota’s former governor (and the last Republican to win statewide) told the CNN host. Pawlenty told us he’s not working himself into a cable TV contributor role. Instead he called himself a “somewhat frequent guest/volunteer commentator.” Pawlenty is staying in touch with Minnesota movers and shakers, too. He’s slated to speak to snowbirds and other ex-pats in Naples, Fla. next month through the Center of the American Experiment.