The campaign finance reports released last week show that political action committees large and small have been funneling lots of money into legislative races.

It’s not hard to see why campaign operatives from both political parties have had Minnesota’s newly drawn Senate District 53 on their radar since day one.

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.

The most anticipated political event of the year at the Capitol — the unveiling of court-drawn state legislative and congressional districts that will be used for the next decade — arrived at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Freshman Republican Sen. Ted Lillie’s office has all the markings of a seasoned lawmaker’s lair. Display cases along his wall hold dozens of political pins, which he has collected for years. A cluster of photos of Republican standard-bearers like Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush line his back wall, and a dilapidated collector’s edition of a volume of presidential biographies rests on a nearby shelf.

The scene was unusual for most Capitol regulars. At an early-session press conference, newly minted House Republican leaders Kurt Zellers and Matt Dean introduced the first symbolic bills of their newfound majority. Standing at their side were the bill authors - two first-time legislators just a few weeks removed from their swearing-in.

Today's 2010 campaign finance reports indicate some state legislative races were spendy affairs. We survey some of the marquee races.

Rep. Sarah Anderson had been a staffer in the Minnesota House of Representatives for 10 years by 2006. That's when her predecessor in House District 43A, former Rep. Jeff Johnson, decided he'd leave the Legislature to make a run for the attorney general's office.

Lobbyists who have been waiting on pins and needles for the House and Senate to release their committee rosters got an early holiday present on Wednesday, when the Senate GOP sent out a final list of Republican names that will make up the majority in the chamber's 16 committees next year.

A ferocious pushback by Education Minnesota cast the 70,000-member statewide teacher's union in the role of session bogeyman. The union and its head, Tom Dooher, fought the bill to a standstill in the end; it lost by a tight 68-65 margin in the House, and did not reach the floor in the Senate.