A bi-partisan Senate panel dismissed an ethics complaint against Sen. Scott Newman stemming from an email sent out by his office stating that he would not meet with any individuals or groups that supported his opponent in the November election. Following an occasionally contentious, five-hour hearing on Wednesday, the Senate Subcommittee on Ethical Conduct voted 4-0 that the Hutchinson Republican's behavior did not violate the body's rules.

See video of Sens. Mike Parry and Bill Ingebrigtsen refusing to yield to questions during Thursday's floor session -- and the GOP's response.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY EVENTS: 5B RACE: U.S. Rep. and GOP darling Chip Cravaack will host a fundraiser for House 5B GOP candidate Paul Jacobson today in ...

On the first day of the legislative session on Tuesday, many of the Senate's new Republican committee administrators were still receiving the keys to their offices and waiting for their phones to be set up. But for the most part, the top committee staffers who will help Senate Republicans govern in the majority for the first time since 1972 are hardly strangers to the Capitol.

Lobbyists who have been waiting on pins and needles for the House and Senate to release their committee rosters got an early holiday present on Wednesday, when the Senate GOP sent out a final list of Republican names that will make up the majority in the chamber's 16 committees next year.

The restructuring of the caucus and its chairs by a new leadership team is widely expected to produce a decidedly conservative shift on the part of Senate Republicans, who in recent years have built a more centrist track record than their increasingly conservative House colleagues.

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.

The contest for legislative endorsements in the GOP gubernatorial contest remains almost a dead heat. State Rep. Marty Seifert currently claims 16 members of the legislature as supporters, while Rep. Tom Emmer boasts 18 state House and Senate backers.