When the 87th Minnesota Legislature convenes in January, it will seat 60 new members - the third-highest total of the past 40 years. Fifty-four of those new faces will be Republicans.

State House candidate Tom Heyd doesn't relish the idea of extending the state sales tax to clothing. And from what he's heard door-knocking in the conservative District 16B, voters aren't excited about it either.

After decades of very public clashes between anti-abortion and abortion-rights advocates, the issue has had a notably lower profile in recent state campaigns. And ostensibly at least, 2010 is likely to continue that trend. But it hardly means that abortion politics is a forgotten matter.

The new political action committee Voices of Conservative Women has bought $5,700 in radio ads to support GOP legislative candidate Mary Franson.

Many Capitol habitués with and without election certificates complain that the committee structure of recent years has created a more frenzied process that stretches legislators too thin and is too hard for lobbyists to follow.

In May 2009 Jennifer DeJournett, Lisa Belak and a handful of other Republican women from Minnesota attended a seminar in Washington, D.C. focused on the role of women in politics. What they learned was distressing: Virtually all of the advances made by female politicians over the last two decades had occurred on the Democratic side of the aisle.

Traditionally, there have been a number of more or less well-worn paths to the Minnesota Legislature. They include backgrounds in local government, business, and partisan political activism. Each, in its own way, has tended to breed familiarity with the levers of government and how they operate.

The power divide between DFLers and Republicans in the Minnesota House may look daunting on its face, but not so long ago the GOP held a similarly imposing majority.

The Voices of Conservative Women political action committee (VOICESPAC), based in Maple Grove, has endorsed eight candidates for the Minnesota state Legislature, three in the Senate and five in the House.

Ag policy Chair Mary Ellen Otremba, DFL-Long Prairie, announced today that she won't seek an eighth term representing District 11B.