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.

Senate District 22 covers a sprawling nine-county swath of southwestern Minnesota that borders both South Dakota and Iowa. Partisans on both sides agree that the district is staunchly conservative.

Political operatives who have been crunching the numbers and talking to candidates see no shortage of swing districts in this year’s legislative elections. The new redistricting maps have tweaked the partisan complexion of many districts.

In previous legislative sessions, proposals to expand gambling have attracted more support from Republicans than DFLers. Given Minnesota's $5 billion state budget deficit and the new Republican majorities in the House and Senate, gambling proposals would seem to stand a much-improved chance of landing on the governor's desk as part of a budget agreement.

State Senate stalwart Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, likely won't pursue an 11th term in 2012.

Late last week, three of the principal architects of the Republicans' Minnesota Senate takeover gathered in Sen. Amy Koch's office for one last time to talk about how they'd pulled it off.

Republicans pummeled DFLers in the suburbs and greater Minnesota on Tuesday night to take control of both chambers of the Legislature for the first time since the modern partisan era started in the early 1970s.

State Sen. Jim Vickerman calls himself the most conservative Democrat in Minnesota, and he has a voting record to bolster that claim. The seven-term lawmaker has represented Senate District 22 with a light hand since 1986. The rural area has, with the exception of Vickerman, consistently voted Republican over the last decade.

Chaudhary's primary loss made him the body's fifth departing chair

Hours after Tuesday's DFL primary, the Minnesota GOP launched a TV ad attack calling DFLer Mark Dayton "erratic" and wondering out loud what frequency he was on.