House Republicans are taking the opportunity to make some permanent changes to the rules now that they're in the majority.

The Minnesota House this afternoon approved a bill that would substantially alter the authority of the governor to "unallot" funds from the general fund budget.

DFL legislative leaders have released their proposal for balancing the state's nearly $3 billion budget deficit by the time the session legally must adjourn next Monday. And the essential trade-off appears to be this: DFLers will say yes to 80-85 percent of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's unallotment actions, including a ratification of his ad hoc $1.8 billion school payment shift, if the governor agrees to $433 million in new taxes.

Wednesday's Minnesota Supreme Court decision invalidating the one-man, $2.7 billion budget-balancing act undertaken last year by Gov. Tim Pawlenty left Democrats cheering and Republicans sniping, but the reaction was richly bipartisan in another sense: Everyone began scrambling to figure out what has to happen next and what the broader repercussions might be.

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

A panel discussion this morning at the University of Minnesota explored the ramifications of this week's ruling on unallotment by the state Supreme Court.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty this morning signed an emergency executive order for "emergency cash management planning for prioritization of core government services."

Legislative leaders met with Gov. Tim Pawlenty this morning for the first time since a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling seemingly increased the state's budget deficit by $2.7 billion. House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjem and House Minority Leader Kurt Zellers spent less than an hour in the governor's office.

The K-12 omnibus bill that's expected to reach the House floor late this week already contains a provision ratifying Pawlenty's "mimic" of a K-12 education payment shift. That would solve $1.2 billion of the problem for bookkeeping purposes.

The upshot of the Minnesota Supreme Court's unallotment ruling is that nobody can says for certain exactly how large a budget deficit the state faces in the current biennium. But House Majority Leader Tony Sertich expressed confidence today that the legislature can still finish its business prior to its scheduled adjournment in less than two weeks.