The last time DFLers controlled all the levers of power at the Capitol, during the 1989-90 legislative session, Duane Benson was the Republican Senate minority leader. Benson recalls making a floor speech at the time comparing the dynamic to a basketball contest between the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals.

Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton managed to draw a large crowd to a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis just ahead of the annual Twin Cities Pride Festival. The purpose was to raise money for Minnesotans United for All Families, the main campaign in opposition to a proposed ballot initiative.

Minnesotans United for All Families -- the primary group opposing the gay marriage amendment -- has raised $3.1 million so far this year, with roughly 90 percent of that money coming from in-state donors.

If there’s one thing lobbyists and longtime Capitol observers of all stripes can agree on with respect to the 2012 legislative session, it’s that the pressure is off.

Brian Steinhoff has his agenda set for the upcoming legislative session. As the president of the Minnesota Retailers Association (MRA), which represents 2,000 businesses ranging in size from major corporations to mom-and-pop shops across the state, he is making the issue of online sales taxes his main focus in 2012.

Cullen Sheehan is stepping down as state Senate GOP chief of staff to lobby for Minneapolis-based Lockridge Grindal Nauen. The Senate majority's legislative director Kevin Matzek will assume the chief of staff's role.

A steady downpour didn’t keep Indian gambling workers from flocking outside the state Capitol in St. Paul last April. At least 1,500 people gathered outside on the building’s steps, some arriving by the busload from reservations hours away. Clad in raincoats and shielded by a canopy of umbrellas, workers thrust signs into the air that read, “Rural jobs count too” and “Don’t gamble with my job!”

The scene was a new one for the governor, at least since the state entered a historic government shutdown two weeks ago. While Dayton made an additional offer to the GOP majorities and appeared at two St. Paul news conferences in the week after the July 1 shutdown, few have seen the state’s chief executive outside of the confines of the now-locked down state Capitol.

As June began to slip away and it grew increasingly likely that the Minnesota budget impasse was headed for a government shutdown, talks around the Capitol began to revolve around the bargaining leverage each side would hold as the full attention of Minnesotans turned to its dysfunctional Capitol.

Former state Rep. Laura Brod has joined the law firm of Lockridge Grindal Nauen as a "senior strategic advisor" focusing on business development and government affairs. The New Prague Republican served four terms in the House, but decided not to run for re-election last year.