During a press conference Tuesday, Dayton and DFL legislative leaders prefaced the looming 2014 mid-term campaigns with a checklist of their accomplishments at the helm of state government.

The governor’s pitch devotes $616 million – fully half of the state’s projected $1.2 billion surplus – to tax rollbacks.

Republican speakers expressed gratitude, though several used the occasion to criticize the DFL for passing the taxes in the first place.

The first 279 House bills of the 2014 legislative session are already on record, thanks to a pre-filing deadline earlier this month. Many of those bills find legislators eager to peel back last year’s new business taxes, while another stack bears witness to members’ best efforts to push pet capital investment projects to the front of the line.

Otto shook up both her role as state auditor and her campaign for re-election last month when she cast the lone “no” vote as the state’s Executive Council took up 31 exploratory nonferrous mining leases in northeastern Minnesota. The leases went ahead anyway, but in voting against them, Otto became the first statewide elected official to express concern about the state’s move toward the new process of nonferrous mining

Rachel Larson Bohman wasted no time getting into the race for Minnesota secretary of state. Within an hour of DFL officeholder Mark Ritchie’s Tuesday announcement that he would not seek a third term in 2014, Bohman released a statement putting her name in the ring as a Democrat.

The state House on Friday agreed to submit to Minnesota voters a constitutional amendment question that asks if an independent council should be given the authority to determine legislators’ pay.

After a steady flow of budget bills on the House floor that appropriate general fund money for the 2014-2015 budget period, the House on Wednesday night passed the tax bill intended to pay for the spending.

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

The path through any budget session leads to a negotiating table at which the governor and legislative leaders work out the most politically palatable taxing and spending deal they can muster. But the budget is never the only game in town. Before the session endgame gets played out, a network of committees will play host to various and sundry dramas involving policy issues before state government.