Mike McFadden, who hopes to challenge sitting Democrat Al Franken, hasn't cast a ballot in a primary for the last 20 years. Other GOP candidates for the seat, including Rep. Jim Abeler, Sen. Julianne Ortman and Chris Dahlberg have been involved in the process.

After several weeks of public posturing and private negotiations, Gov. Mark Dayton and legislative leaders have agreed to hold a special session next month to deliver disaster relief funds to parts of the state hit by severe storms – and nothing more.

Shar Knutson and Brad Lehto, Minnesota AFL-CIO; David Olson, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.

State Rep. Karen Clark, who was the lead sponsor of legislation legalizing same-sex marriage, will receive the lifetime achievement award as part of the fourth annual Leaders in Public Policy awards, sponsored by Capitol Report and Politics in Minnesota. Clark and the other honorees will be recognized at a ceremony at the Saint Paul Hotel on July 11.

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.

Gov. Mark Dayton rolled out the specifics of his revised budget plan Thursday at the Capitol. And as he had intimated, the reworked budget eliminated a raft of proposed sales tax changes, including a hot-button plan to tax a range of business-to-business services.

The Democratic governor, speaking in front of members of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce on their day at the Capitol, outlined the broad strokes of his revised budget plan, due out this week. He said it will include about $1.8 billion in new revenue generated by an income tax increase on the top 2 percent of earners in the state and a proposed cigarette tax increase.

As DFL legislative leaders prepare for the start of session next Tuesday, fixing the state’s general fund budget – $1.1 billion in deficit, and plagued by a decade’s worth of patchwork repairs – is the job that’s most on the minds of DFL Senate Majority Leader-elect Tom Bakk.

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 Minnesota Chamber of Commerce has been flummoxed in recent legislative sessions not so much by their usual sparring partners in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party but by a new coterie of conservative Republicans.