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.

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.

It has long been the bane of Minnesota’s business community, and this legislative session, both Republican majorities at the Capitol are looking to do away with it once and for all.

No one seemed to see Larry Pogemiller’s departure coming. Not even him. Gov. Mark Dayton announced late last week that the Minneapolis senator of nearly 30 years would move to the Office of Higher Education to replace former Director Sheila Wright, who resigned suddenly in September.

At the close of a news conference in July called by Republican legislative leaders to discuss the $11 billion health and human services bill, former DFL House Speaker Bob Vanasek offered some pointed criticism to Republicans David Hann and Jim Abeler from the back of the room.

Although the state won’t issue its next economic forecast until early December, the outlook for the state budget is growing increasingly gloomy.

The February 2011 budget forecast that knocked $1.2 billion off the state's recent budget deficit came with no shortage of caveats. Nearly half the rosier revenue picture was attributable to predicted capital gains collections, which are notoriously volatile.

During the early part of her two-plus decades in the state Legislature, retired Republican Sen. Pat Pariseau remembers being just one of a handful of Minnesota legislators who could call themselves members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Some bills were only posted online in the early hours of Wednesday morning, just hours — or minutes — before they passed. By morning they were signed into law by the governor. Now some lobbyists, many of whom spend long days and nights at the Capitol during session, are scrambling to understand the budget bills’ implications for their clients.

Now that the state shutdown appears to be over, it seemed a good time to wonder what goes on in those conference rooms for hours ...