In light of the dramas in Washington recently over increasing the debt ceiling and temporarily shutting down the Federal Aviation Administration, it’s possible that federal highway funding could be the next casualty of Beltway partisanship.

Legislative leaders in Minnesota are eager to remake the Metropolitan Council, and the biggest prize for the Republicans now running the legislative show in St. Paul is transit, a major part of what the $750 million-plus Met Council does.

By all accounts, the Dayton administration’s shutdown playbook went something like this: Limited to only the most essential, core services, a hard but short-lived shuttering of state government would ramp up the pressure on intransigent Republicans and push the Legislature toward compromise.

"It really sounds like you want me to become an activist judge," Gearin told the two Republican transportation committee chairmen.

The two Republican chairmen of the Legislature's Transportation committees will be in Ramsey County court this morning to make the case that $100 million of transportation projects should restart.

The judge who laid the groundwork for the current shutdown will hear four cases arguing for more approved spending and a wider range of services.

Republicans who received the veto letters say they strike a tone of anything but compromise.

The House passed HF 1140, the transportation finance conference report, on a 71-61 vote in the early minutes of Thursday morning.

DFL Gov. Mark Dayton said that it is a "fantasy island" scenario for Republicans to believe that the state will receive a waiver from the federal government in time for the start of the next biennium in July.

Last Wednesday, just a day after new Republican legislative majorities unveiled their downsized committee structure, it rained gavels at the Capitol. Incoming caucus leaders Amy Koch and Kurt Zellers handed down a total of 40 chair appointments as a substantial contingent of the anointed stood beaming at their side.