Dayton and his campaign team are adamant about his plans to run for re-election, and with roughly one year to go before Election Day, they’re crafting a campaign message that highlights job creation, higher education funding and lower property taxes during his first term as governor. Likewise, the five Republicans currently seeking the nomination to take Dayton on next fall are combing through his record and preparing their attacks.

Fritz Knaak remembers tripling his billings at his law firm in 1992, the year the Republican state senator from White Bear Lake decided to retire from politics.

Earlier this month, 8th Congressional District GOP activist Terry Stone drafted a letter to House Speaker Kurt Zellers. It urged Zellers to begin the unprecedented process of impeaching DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

There are a few rites of passage Gov. Mark Dayton has yet to undertake since entering office two years ago, and appointing a justice to the Minnesota Supreme Court is one of them.

No one seemed to see Larry Pogemiller’s departure coming. Not even him. Gov. Mark Dayton announced late last week that the Minneapolis senator of nearly 30 years would move to the Office of Higher Education to replace former Director Sheila Wright, who resigned suddenly in September.

By all accounts, the Dayton administration’s shutdown playbook went something like this: Limited to only the most essential, core services, a hard but short-lived shuttering of state government would ramp up the pressure on intransigent Republicans and push the Legislature toward compromise.

As June began to slip away and it grew increasingly likely that the Minnesota budget impasse was headed for a government shutdown, talks around the Capitol began to revolve around the bargaining leverage each side would hold as the full attention of Minnesotans turned to its dysfunctional Capitol.

Four GOP senators were rebuffed, as they were last week in the main shutdown case, in their effort to join as separate parties.

The dismissal, issued without prejudice, leaves the lawmakers to take up their claim with the rest of the shutdown case in Ramsey County Court, but also leaves the door open to refile after that decision is handed out.

Knaak is the latest attorney to join the fray ahead of Thursday afternoon's hearing in St. Paul.