House negotiators rejected the Senate’s $9.50 offer last night, in part because its application would have been restricted to big businesses.

In a statement following the decision, DHS Commissioner Lucinda Jesson echoed the call for legislative action this spring.

The idea is significantly more popular with the young and less affluent, and polls much better with Democrats than Republicans.

Otto shook up both her role as state auditor and her campaign for re-election last month when she cast the lone “no” vote as the state’s Executive Council took up 31 exploratory nonferrous mining leases in northeastern Minnesota. The leases went ahead anyway, but in voting against them, Otto became the first statewide elected official to express concern about the state’s move toward the new process of nonferrous mining

Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter rejected calls from American Indian activists who were pushing for the delay of bond sales on the new Minnesota Vikings stadium, the Star Tribune reports. The activists are trying to get assurances that the word "Redskins," the' nickname for the Washington, D.C. NFL team, will not be displayed inside the stadium.

For DFL Rep. Alice Hausman, next year’s bonding bill is a take-two proposition. The House Capital Investment Committee chair from St. Paul pushed for an $800 million package of construction projects last year, but watched it fail by five votes the day before session adjourned.

When a bipartisan group of legislators threw a medical marijuana bill into the hopper during the last month of the 2013 legislative session, it wasn’t intended as an 11th-hour bargaining chip. Anticipating a short session in 2014, advocates said they were trying to set the stage for convincing lawmakers that they should join a growing list of states that allow patients to use the drug to alleviate pain.

Early this week, half a dozen offered no comment on which way they will vote the bill, which is scheduled for a floor vote Thursday.

DFL Rep. Carly Melin Advocates of legalizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes claim that they have 40 co-sponsors for legislation that will be introduced on Thursday.

The last time DFLers controlled all the levers of power at the Capitol, during the 1989-90 legislative session, Duane Benson was the Republican Senate minority leader. Benson recalls making a floor speech at the time comparing the dynamic to a basketball contest between the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals.