Outlook Poor For Brewers

The state Senate early today killed a plan aimed at keeping the Milwaukee Brewers in Wisconsin by raising taxes to help build the team a $250 million stadium.

The Senate twice voted 16-15 against the proposal, which had narrowly passed the Assembly last week.

The first vote came after 12 hours of debate on 33 amendments. The Senate immediately moved for reconsideration and broke for nearly an hour in closed caucus.

Republican Gov. Tommy G. Thompson - who helped draft the plan during months of negotiations with the Brewers and Milwaukee city and county officials - joined the late-night Republican caucus, but the vote didn’t change.

Brewers owner Bud Selig, who spent an anxious day at the Capitol watching debate, earlier refused to flatly state he would move his team if the bill failed, saying only: “We’ll explore other alternatives, obviously.”