For former DFL Sen. Jim Carlson, it was a matter of a little reflection and time to “lick my wounds” before he knew he was ready to run again for the state Senate. Carlson, who served one term in the chamber, was ousted last fall by Republican newcomer Ted Daley as part of a massive GOP wave that saw the party take control of both the House and Senate for the first time in nearly four decades.

Former Rochester DFL Sen. Ann Lynch, who was ousted by Republican Carla Nelson in the fall, is already raising money for a possible 2012 Senate bid to reclaim her old seat in the upper chamber.

Today's 2010 campaign finance reports indicate some state legislative races were spendy affairs. We survey some of the marquee races.

As the Minnesota Legislature prepares for a transition that will see 60 freshmen join the rolls of the state Senate and House, PIM continues with our series of post-election portraits of the 2011 class. In this latest edition, we look at seven more members of the incoming Senate Republican majority.

Late last week, three of the principal architects of the Republicans' Minnesota Senate takeover gathered in Sen. Amy Koch's office for one last time to talk about how they'd pulled it off.

In many cases, DFLers simply got caught in an undertow in districts that are fundamentally split in their political allegiances; in some, like rural Senate District 16, they handed back control of districts no one had expected them to win in the first place; in others, it appears, they failed to take steps to protect incumbents who faced discernible pockets of Republican opposition.

State legislators in special session today unanimously voted to appropriate money for an assortment of programs to help people and businesses in flood ravaged southern Minnesota. The House passed the bill 131-0. The Senate later in the afternoon also unanimously passed the bill 66-0.

Political action committees and legislative caucuses have already done mailings assailing the opposition. But now that the campaign has entered the final month, the rough-and-tumble race for the Legislature is kicking into high gear.

Many Capitol habitués with and without election certificates complain that the committee structure of recent years has created a more frenzied process that stretches legislators too thin and is too hard for lobbyists to follow.

Around convention time in the spring, Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjem, R-Rochester, boasted that his caucus would retake the chamber’s majority in November. Considering Senate Republicans’ 38-year stranglehold on minority status, and the 13 seats that his troops will need to gain to make good on the pledge, it amounts to a tall order.