The MNsure Board will hold a final pre-launch meeting, which is scheduled to include a progress update from interim CEO Scott Leitz.

Standing in front of nearly 1,000 of the state’s top business leaders and GOP political influencers is likely not Gov. Mark Dayton’s favorite place to be. The Democratic governor has been at odds with business groups since he first ran for election in 2010, when they sunk millions into trying to defeat him.

K-12 education finance bills that account for roughly 40 percent of the state’s general fund spending are moving through the House and Senate floors this week.

Rumblings about the marriage amendment’s unpopularity in the western suburbs came early in the campaign season. Orange and blue “vote no” signs vastly outnumbered “vote yes” ones, particularly in places like Edina, and Republican candidates running for the Legislature avoided the issue at the doors and in debates at all cost.

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.

The change in Minnesota politics wrought by the 2010 election created equal measures of optimism and concern among the business groups that lobby state lawmakers.

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty has retired the debt left over from his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination, his campaign said Tuesday, officially erasing a burden that at once stood at more than $500,000.

Business interests still hoping some of their legislative priorities will be addressed in waning days of session.

Last Saturday GOP activists gathered in Burnsville to determine who would be the endorsed candidate in House District 56A. No incumbent is running for re-election in the district, which leans heavily Republican.

Looking to the session ahead, groups like the chamber and the Minnesota Business Partnership plan to renew the push for their key 2011 measures and have added a few new priorities as well.