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

Lawmakers in St. Paul and Washington, D.C., have tried in recent months to free a vast amount of school trust land from the even vaster confines of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA).

Rukavina announced his retirement in a letter Friday morning, the day after both chambers adjourned for the year. The Virginia lawmaker, one-time failed gubernatorial candidate and notorious legislative orator did not give a retirement speech on the last day of session.

In 1954, when Tom Anzelc was 8 years old, his family was kicked off their plot of land near Keewatin on the Iron Range. The parcel, along with 40 to 60 others, was confiscated for mineral exploration.

On its face, the vote taken recently by the state’s top constitutional officers to delay the granting of mineral rights leases on the Iron Range for six months was democracy in action: government bending to a public outcry and pledging to explore the issues raised.

Fanning, who officially announced he was running for the seat earlier this week, was endorsed Friday by Chisholm Mayor Michael Jugovich and Buhl Mayor Craig Pulford.

DFL La Prairie City Council member Joe Gould plans to challenge first-term Republican Rep. Carolyn McElfatrick for her Iron Range House seat next fall.

Iron Range legislators got riled up during the House floor debate of the omnibus Jobs and Economic Development Finance bill Tuesday over a provision to tap $60 million from a northern Minnesota economic development fund to help solve the $5 billion budget deficit.

Ever since Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack's stunning upset in the 8th Congressional District last fall, Minnesota politicos have been drafting a list of DFLers who could possibly win back the seat in 2012. A DFL source says Lieutenant Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon is considering a run.

Lawmakers from the Iron Range are fuming over a move by Republicans to use dedicated northern Minnesota economic development dollars to help solve the $5 billion budget deficit.