Minnesota Lawyer

Elizabeth Lincoln welcomes all the questions you’ve got. As head librarian at the Legislative Reference Library on the sixth floor of the State Office Building, it’s Lincoln’s job to keep lawmakers, their staffs and the public up-to-date on the wonkiest of topics.

Gov. Chris Christie had the best day he’s going to have for a long time on Jan. 9. He had two hours to give his side of the lane closings on the George Washington Bridge that gridlocked Fort Lee, N.J., for four days in September.

After Christmas dinner, I intended to begin a holiday-season television binge. As I often do with things that could be entirely recreational, I made my watching into work: Given how hard it is to get into President Barack Obama’s head, I decided to get into his viewing habits.

Republicans in Congress are so hungry for scalps, they just can’t leave well enough alone. The scandal engulfing the Internal Revenue Service is a story that’s playing to their benefit. Last Monday, after having the weekend to think about it, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida puffed himself up and called on the president to “demand the IRS commissioner’s resignation, effectively immediately.”

Ordinary people, elected and unelected, behaved heroically last week. Unfortunately, it all happened hundreds of miles from Washington.

The most interesting and (probably) most expensive Senate race in the U.S. will tell us how much a Republican can shape-shift and win over a liberal electorate.

I hate to bring up abortion during the Democrats’ festivities, which are going so swimmingly, but I have a question. Why has the party removed the sentence “Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare” from its platform?

“The city’s in serious trouble,” D.C. Council member Marion Barry said last week at yet another raucous Washington hearing. “We are the laughingstock of the nation.”

No one would blame Jeb Bush for feeling that time, or his party, has passed him by. He could have run for president 12 years ago but didn’t.

What’s the matter with Massachusetts that would make Mitt Romney want to pretend he’d never been its governor? Yes, it presents some image problems for the conservative candidate Romney now wants to be.