Tom Emmer tapped into a network of conservative donors that aligned behind his 2010 gubernatorial campaign to give himself a commanding lead.

On the night that House Republicans voted to place an amendment prohibiting gay marriage on the ballot in 2012, Sen. Scott Dibble stood outside the chamber and vowed that Minnesota would become the first state in the country to defeat such a proposal.

GOP-aligned independent groups have rushed to fill the campaign spending gap that Republicans face in their battle for continued control of the Minnesota Legislature.

No fewer than half a dozen major players have emerged among the ranks of pro-Republican business PACs in this election cycle. But while their 42-day pre-general election campaign finance reports are now available for all to see, they continue to play it close with respect to their big-picture plans.

Republican legislative leaders face challenges in amassing a suitable war chest due to both a well-fortified traditional DFL donor base and a state Republican Party that is financially imperiled.

Despite the continuing legal drama surrounding the two constitutional amendments headed for this fall’s ballot, the groups formed to support or defeat the amendments to outlaw gay marriage and mandate voter ID are in something of a holding pattern

In surveying the 2012 campaign cash landscape in Minnesota, it’s not immediately obvious who’s going to help Republican legislators defend their majorities.

The recent flurry of Freedom Club-sponsored pro-right-to-work direct mail pieces sent to the districts of GOP state senators seen as potential opponents of the controversial ballot initiative were sent from a mail house owned by one of their Senate Republican caucus colleagues, Sen. Chris Gerlach.

The four partisan caucuses that make up the Minnesota Legislature raised millions of dollars for their campaigns in 2011.

Brad Rixmann likes to say he was dragged into politics “kicking and screaming.” Just five years ago, Rixmann, the founder and CEO of Pawn America had been at the Capitol only a few times as a child.