The special election to find a replacement for David Dill, who died suddenly earlier this summer, has produced a number of twists and turns and seems to grow stranger by the day.

The entrepreneur and avid sportsman managed to ingratiate himself with a variety of political figures from different regions, ideologies and backgrounds.

By a vote of 111-15, the House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill that would bar suspected domestic abusers who are under active restraining orders from possessing firearms or ammunition.

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

For many lobbyists, working the Legislature is as much about the bills they are able to stop as the bills they are able to pass. That’s why Friday’s final deadline for policy measures to pass through committees in both chambers will be cause for either celebration or relief for Minnesota’s Capitol lobbying corps.

On Thursday night the Minnesota House of Representatives gave final passage to the bill establishing a state-run health-insurance marketplace, leaving the long-disputed measure just a Senate vote away from reaching the governor’s desk.

If DFL majorities in the Minnesota House and Senate are to act on the brewing issue of frac sand extraction, they will first have to overcome internal differences that yawn as large as an open-pit mine.

With DFLers back in control of the House and Senate, many familiar faces will be wielding key gavels when the Legislature convenes on January 8.

Here’s a guide to key policy matters that are likely to be addressed and heavily lobbied in the 2013 legislative session.

The path through any budget session leads to a negotiating table at which the governor and legislative leaders work out the most politically palatable taxing and spending deal they can muster. But the budget is never the only game in town. Before the session endgame gets played out, a network of committees will play host to various and sundry dramas involving policy issues before state government.