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St. Paul (AP) ― A dizzying day of maneuvers on the Minnesota Twins stadium proposal left more questions than answers about the fate of the project.

The DFL Senate majority took extraordinary steps Tuesday to prepare a bill for a floor vote as soon as Thursday. But the plan senators will be voting on is far different than the one that passed the Minnesota House and has the backing of Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

By a close vote, the Senate Rules Committee extracted the House-passed Twins proposal from the Senate Tax Committee, where the proposal had been stalled since last Thursday. Then, the Rules Committee voted 13-11 to expand it to a two-stadium Twins-Vikings bill and enact a broader geographical tax to pay for both.

The bill now awaiting floor consideration calls for a seven-county metropolitan area sales tax of a half cent on every dollar of taxable purchases. The proceeds would top $200 million a year and be used to pay the bulk of costs for new Twins and Vikings stadiums and for mass transit projects in the region. The tax would be subject to voter approval.

"We're taking it a vote at a time, a step at a time," said Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar.

Top Twins officials, who have closely monitored every turn in the stadium debate, were conspicuously absent from Tuesday's Rules Committee hearing. But they previously voiced opposition to a referendum.

They have been advocating for a Hennepin County sales tax increase amounting to three cents per $20 to pay for three-quarters of a $522 million stadium.

Twins Sports Inc. president Jerry Bell viewed the day's events with a dose of optimism.

"At least we got this to the Senate floor," he said in a telephone interview. "We're not in the Tax Committee where the thing was going around in circles."

The metrowide tax is another story. It would be a prime veto candidate for Pawlenty, who campaigned on a no-new-tax pledge in 2002.

The Republican governor has kept a low profile in recent days. His spokesman, Brian McClung, issued a two-sentence response to the Senate activity.

"The primary problem is that the Senate bill does not build a stadium," McClung wrote. "The people of Minnesota should ask their senators how this bill would get the job done."

Pawlenty probably won't be forced to decide what to do with the bill. House Speaker Steve Sviggum, R-Kenyon, said flatly that the House won't support the Senate version.

"It doesn't get the job done. It doesn't move ahead," he said.

Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, was baffled by the moves.

"We're all looking like fools in this Minnesota Senate because we can't do it in a nice orderly way," Day said, stressing that a two-in-one stadium package would sink both proposals.

Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, has been the sponsor of the Hennepin County-Twins proposal. He favors the metrowide tax. It would raise enough money to put a retractable roof on a Twins ballpark in Minneapolis and a Vikings stadium in Blaine. He added that it would save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in financing costs because the facilities would be paid off sooner and accrue less in interest debt.

A third stadium plan -- an on-campus home for the University of Minnesota football team -- remains in limbo. The Senate Tax Committee planned to discuss it Tuesday evening but the meeting was canceled.

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The Metrodome opened in 1982.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)