The House State and Local Government committee this morning defeated a bill to jettison the lieutenant governor's office. The committee voted the bill down 9-7.

Interspersed with the apparently endless bonding requests that flooded the Legislature in the first week of the 2010 session are bills that don't spur impassioned Minnesotans to stage rallies, but which some lawmaker nevertheless thought worth the effort.

Removing a restriction on Sunday retail liquor sales that has been part of Minnesota law since Prohibition could generate as much as $10.6 million a year in new tax revenues for the cash-strapped state, according to an analysis by a national liquor trade association.

A dozen more people have filed papers with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to run for the Legislature in November.

Rep. Phyllis Kahn (DFL-Minneapolis) was named one of Governing magazine's "2009 Public Officials of the Year."

The Minnesota Department of Management and Budget's online site for tracking federal stimulus dollars is getting bad reviews for the quality of its disclosure, and some at the Capitol are worried that there may be deeper problems with the state's data collection and reporting plan in advance of a looming October 10 deadline for submitting expenditure information to the federal government.

Minnesota legislators are wondering if the state is getting the best bang for its buck by paying for money-management firms to handle state pension dollars. ...