Over the objections of Republicans, the state House Rules committee today on a voice vote agreed to hire outside counsel to prepare a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the plaintiffs in the ongoing litigation challenging Gov. Tim Pawlenty's 2009 unallotments.

Wow, no surprise there. MAPE (the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees) held a press conference this morning to announce that it has identified $100 million in new savings to help reduce the budget deficit.

The day in photos from the Capitol.

State lawmakers will try to earn their keep this session by passing a bonding bill that pays for projects that create as many jobs as possible. But legislators aren't limiting the scope of their economic stimulus efforts to borrowing.

The House Jobs Task Force appointed last summer by Speaker and gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher (DFL-Minneapolis) is meeting in all-day session today. This time around, the gavel is in the hands of Capital Investment Finance Division chair Alice Hausman (DFL-St. Paul; pictured above at right), one of the panel's three co-chairs.

Over Republicans’ charges of political gamesmanship, the state House Rules Committee this morning agreed to issue a friend-of-the-court brief crossing Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s budget cutting unallotments earlier this summer.

House Majority Leader Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm) tells PIM that this morning's hour-long breakfast confab between legislative leadership and Gov. Tim Pawlenty was focused mainly on legislators' priorities for the upcoming 2010 session: job creation efforts--inside and outside the bonding bill--and health care considerations.

House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, announced the House Jobs Task Force with the stated intention of crafting legislation for the 2010 legislative session that would increase jobs in Minnesota.

Members of the Minnesota House Capital Investment Committee are touring flood-prevention projects in the Red River Basin today.

The House and the Senate passed the massive Health and Human Services omnibus bill on Monday, taking another step toward the end-of-session brinksmanship between legislators ...