Astroturf group’s Pig Book highlights Coleman’s ‘pork-barrel’ earmarks

Republican Norm Coleman is not in the U.S. Senate anymore, but he’s highlighted twice by the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) in the summary (pdf) of their annual Pig Book database of pork-barrel spending.

The astroturf group knocks Coleman (along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Collin Peterson, both Democrats) for backing $300,000 in spending on wild rice.

And though as a former senator, Coleman isn’t included on drop-down menu at the group’s searchable database, CAGW also ridicules Coleman (along with another Democrat, Rep. Keith Ellison), for seeking $240,000 for the Shubert Performing Arts Center in Minneapolis.

The two mentions are the most for any member of Minnesota’s congressional delegation in CAGW’s summary booklet.

There is more to mock in the now-misty past of the Shubert project, if CAGW were rootsy enough to dig it up. 

A decade ago the 1910 Shubert Theater became the biggest building (at 5.8 million pounds) in the history of the world to be moved — for a distance of a little more than a block.

That monumental move was undertaken to make room for the taxpayer-backed Block E development, which was built with $39 million in tax-increment financing.

Block E, considered by many to be a classic, failed central-city imitation of suburban entertainment centers, now counts a Hooters restaurant among its paltry attractions.

The Minnesota Legislature includes $1,000,000 for the Shubert project in its current omnibus bonding bill. Past bonding has supplied $12 million to the project, now said to be “shovel-ready” for federal-stimulus cash.

Here’s a History Channel clip about the Shubert’s move, including some time-lapse photography sequences. Day-by-day video clips of the move are here.