Senate File 1 of today's special legislative session, as expected, provides financial assistance to flood ravaged regions of southern Minnesota. Trailing in the wake of the flood assistance bill are a small number of bills that take on hot button issues.

Many Capitol habitués with and without election certificates complain that the committee structure of recent years has created a more frenzied process that stretches legislators too thin and is too hard for lobbyists to follow.

Session 2010's tempest over whether to take a federal deal that would have jump-started Minnesota's entry to a new federal Medicaid expansion hasn't subsided. It simply followed legislators out the doors of the Capitol and onto the campaign trail.

The Minnesota Supreme Court’s unallotment ruling has complicated the already prickly debate over health and human services funding.

Slightly more than three weeks ago, on March 26, Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed a compromise bill that kept alive the general assistance medical care (GAMC) program.

The 2,400 page federal health care bill will likely take state budget officials months to parse thoroughly. Nobody knows at this point exactly how much money will will ultimately trickle down to Minnesota's coffers. But it seems highly likely that additional potential revenue streams will be discovered as the legislation is reviewed.

If there’s anything to the notion that all politics is personal, then it’s not hard to see how Erin Murphy wound up in the Minnesota Legislature. Murphy, the DFL state representative from St. Paul, is a nurse by profession. She comes from what she describes as a “big Irish Catholic family” that lionized John F. Kennedy.

Rep. Ryan Winkler (DFL-Golden Valley) glances at Republican members of the House and Senate who stayed to watch his press conference with Rep. Tom Huntley (DFL-Duluth).

It will be some time before anyone at the Capitol complex can claim an authoritative grasp of what the new federal laws mean for Minnesota's near- and long-term general fund budget troubles. But in the meantime, legislative fiscal analysts suggest the truth is different from the early claims of both Democrats and Republicans.

Rep. Tom Huntley (DFL-Duluth) beams at the press as he explains the ramifications of the federal healthcare bill passage Monday morning.