We mentioned earlier that the Minnesota Vikings' stadium bill continued its journey through the Minnesota legislature, but that wasn't the only stadium-related development in St. Paul this morning.

We've had posts before on the White Earth Tribe's quest to be a part of the Vikings' stadium process via a new casino that would fund a great deal of the state's portion of the stadium. Well, they decided that they would up the proverbial ante today with a new proposal.

Minnesota's largest and poorest Indian tribe is offering to cut the state a $400 million check to cover the state's share of construction costs for a new Vikings stadium. Tribal chairwoman Erma J. Vizenor made the offer at a Thursday press conference, flanked by House and Senate sponsors willing to try to push a White Earth casino proposal through the end-of-session gridlock of racino bills, pull tab proposals and other gridlocked stadium deals. "We are shovel-ready," said Vizenor, who floated the idea earlier this session of partnering with the state on a metro casino, and splitting 50 percent of the net revenue. "Minnesota Wins is the only solution that meets the test of fairness, common sense and no new taxes, guaranteed."

I'm not completely up to speed on the tribal gaming laws in Minnesota or anything like that, so I'm sure that there are a lot of reasons why this isn't a good idea. . .but, as an outsider, I don't see them.

The White Earth Tribe appears to be serious about this, or else they wouldn't keep putting forth the effort to come forward and propose these sorts of things. Will anything come of it? At this point, it doesn't look like it, but it's nice to know that at least one group can see the value of the Vikings to the state of Minnesota.