Drinking, drainage and drought are D-Day targets for southwestern Minnesota lawmakers.

D-Day is Tuesday when the lawmakers,all with at least one year of seasoning, gather in the capitol at St. Paul. This will be the second half of the “game” that started in 1975. It is scheduled to be the short half of the 69th session.

“We aren’t going to stay here forever,” said Nicholas Coleman, senate majority leader and one of the whips.

Rural lawmakers have some things they want cleaned up before the hoped for April 1 adjournment of the 69th.

Sen. John Bernhagen, R-Hutchinson, is sponsoring a bill that would raise the legal drinking age in bars to 19. It was lowered from 21 to 18 several years ago, ostensibly to keep up with the Joneses over in Wisconsin. Interviews with 11 senators and representatives in the southwest region showed eight for the 19 age or older.

HALF the men said they favored doing something about drought, which is covered under the weather modification bills submitted in 1975. Sen. Joe Josefson, R, and Rep. Russel Stanton, DFL, both of the Marshall area, were names on those bills. Both men are near the South Dakota line, and that state has been modifying weather successfully.

Such legislation also is called “rain-making,” because it involves seeding rain clouds, but it also includes breaking up destructive storm clouds.

Two other legislators from the southwest are undecided, figure they need more of a sales job.

DRAINAGE is a more complicated issue. On the side is the farmer-owner who wants to drain his potholes to get more production. On the other side is the sportsman wanting habitat for waterfowl.

Classification of waters and payment for lands kept natural slowed this legislation last year and no doubt will lead to many meetings and arguments this year.

Rural legislators appear cool to some other issues high on the agenda, a new football and baseball stadium in downtown Minneapolis and a pay increase.

They are almost solid against a full-time legislature. They want a tax break of some kind to aid families to keep the land in tact for another generation instead of being wiped out by death of the patriarch.

THE LAWMAKERS will not have major spending bills to cope with, but there will be decisions to make on bonding-for bridges-and a $40 million request for loan funds to spark the housing industry.

They will not have the keynote address this year, the governor’s State of the State message usually delivered in person to the joint houses, but Governor Anderson is not silent.

He sent all legislators a five page letter last week outlining what he considered priority work. He reminded them that state law requires a balanced budget.

New Ulm Daily Journal

Jan. 25, 1976