Close on the heels of Tuesday’s election, members of the new DFL House and Senate majorities gathered behind closed doors on Thursday to elect their leaders. As expected, the minority leaders who helped steer Democrats back into control — Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, and Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook — were elevated to House speaker and Senate majority leader.

The fields in all 201 Minnesota legislative contests this fall are now set after more than 40 primary races across the state were settled on Tuesday. In some instances, DFLers and Republicans won contests in partisan strongholds and have almost assuredly secured their place in the Legislature next session.

Left for dead in April, the Vikings stadium bill sprinted to passage in the session’s closing days. What happened?

The bills are the first to pass the Senate, where a number of shutdown-mitigating bills have been introduced. Republicans are also weighing an "umbrella" shutdown bill.

DFLers decried a piecemeal approach to handling future shutdowns, while a key Republican says caucus discussions about a broader bill continue.

Nearly two months after a December whirlwind that saw Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch and her entire leadership team resign, the chamber’s Republican majority has moved into the 2012 session and put the upheaval in its rear-view mirror. Almost.

It was supposed to be such a nice session. Or at least that’s what Capitol watchers and many lawmakers were expecting after last year’s bitter shutdown fight. Nor was that the only wound still in need of closing.

The proposed budget – which took a five percent cut as part of an agreement to solve the $5 billion deficit in July – cuts about $444,000 from the DFL minority caucus. The budget passed on a 7 to 4 party line vote in the Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday.

The resolution means the Senate will officially file brief in support of a lawsuit that has pitted 11 childcare providers against the Dayton administration in Ramsey County District Court

Try as she might, there are occasions when Sen. Amy Klobuchar can’t please everyone. Last month the DFL freshman senator drew national headlines when teen idol Justin Bieber declared that she should be “locked up” for sponsoring legislation that would make streaming unlicensed online content a felony.