In an announcement that brought cheers and jeers from both sides of the aisle, Gov. Mark Dayton ended more than three months of suspense Thursday by awarding $47.5 million in bonding money to nine projects.

Republicans won an unequivocal victory on Monday in a pair of Minnesota Supreme Court rulings on issues related to constitutional amendments on the November ballot.

Earlier this month, 8th Congressional District GOP activist Terry Stone drafted a letter to House Speaker Kurt Zellers. It urged Zellers to begin the unprecedented process of impeaching DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

The Legislature will spend $18,000 to intervene in the Voter ID suit before the Supreme Court.

The measure, carried by Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer in the House and Sen. Scott Newman in the Senate, will now officially head to the ballot this fall.

The proposal, authored by freshman GOP Sen. Scott Newman, passed on a 36-30 vote after nearly five hours of debate. GOP freshman Sen. Jeremy Miller voted with all DFLers against the measure.

The conventional wisdom from the start was that Session 2012 would be a short one. A healthy budget surplus plus newly redrawn legislative districts meant less work to be done at the Capitol and more to be done back home, where some lawmakers will face intra-party endorsement challenges and others have to get to know a daunting amount of new territory.

A proposal to require in the state Constitution that Minnesota voters present a photo ID at the polls is headed for full Senate approval on Friday.

Hopes for a last-ditch legislative deal that would avert a GOP constitutional amendment to require photo identification at the polls all but expired last week when no Republican lawmakers showed up to stand with Gov. Mark Dayton at a news conference on the subject.

DFLers decried a piecemeal approach to handling future shutdowns, while a key Republican says caucus discussions about a broader bill continue.