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Who's Ahead?
Gov Staff Threaten Sertich?
04/11/08
Rep. Tony Sertich came to the press today to claim that several weeks ago a “staff member from the governor’s office” called him and said he was relaying a message from the governor that “cheap shots are cheap, but not free” and that the governor looked forward to seeing Sertich’s bills. Making a threat that Gov. Pawlenty was going to veto Sertich’s bonding projects.
Sertich says the fact the governor said his line-items were to trim a bill that was too big is a “lie” because he was paying back Sertich for his comments that were critical about the governor’s level of engagement. On March 14, when this call apparently took place lawmakers had not sent the governor a final bonding bill. It was still being negotiated.
Sertich will not reveal who called. He said this was between him and the governor.
Gov. Pawlenty's Communications Director responded by not denying the call took place, but said specific bonding projects were not mentioned. Here are his exact words, he put them in bold, not me:
Sertich says the fact the governor said his line-items were to trim a bill that was too big is a “lie” because he was paying back Sertich for his comments that were critical about the governor’s level of engagement. On March 14, when this call apparently took place lawmakers had not sent the governor a final bonding bill. It was still being negotiated.
Sertich will not reveal who called. He said this was between him and the governor.
Gov. Pawlenty's Communications Director responded by not denying the call took place, but said specific bonding projects were not mentioned. Here are his exact words, he put them in bold, not me:
Even if others do not, we respect the spirit of confidentiality that is generally part of private conversations, so I won’t go into great detail regarding who said what.
Rep. Sertich and all Democrats had fair notice of the consequences if they chose to violate the state’s credit card limit by passing a fiscally irresponsible bonding bill. In fact, after they did so, they recommended that the Governor line-item projects, rather than veto the whole bill.
When speaking with Rep. Sertich, no one on our staff linked projects in the bonding bill to any comments made regarding the relative value of cheap shots.