Gov. Mark Dayton has appointed former DFL state legislator Tony Sertich to the board of Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, the public body that’s overseeing construction ...

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.

Gov. Mark Dayton has appointed his deputy chief of staff, Michelle Kelm-Helgen, to chair the new Minnesota Stadium Authority. Kelm-Helgen will resign from her current job to fill the position overseeing construction of the Minnesota Vikings stadium.

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.

Through the years, Linda Berglin may have taken on the look of an aunt who gives you a peck on the cheek at family reunions, but if you got in her way, you discovered that she legislated like a linebacker — and one who kept coming at you with the stamina of a marathon runner.

There is a cloudy magenta scarf draped over Linda Berglin’s shoulders, with delicate patches of silk that resemble faded autumn leaves and pastel butterflies. She makes scarves like these herself. “It makes me happy when I wear them,” she says.

With newly installed Republican majorities in the House and Senate, K-12 education reform became the subject of intense debate this year, a struggle that began in the regular session and continued until just hours before the Legislature convened to pass the package of budget bills that ended the shutdown in July.

State’s budget shortfall, economic crisis, will mean tough negotiations over budget, Minnesota revenue commissioner predicts Minnesota Revenue Commissioner Ward Einess can’t tell the future. But ...