Steve Murphy

A bill to allow incurably ill patients to legally purchase marijuana is up for consideration in the Minnesota Senate. The Medical Use of Marijuana bill is nearly identical to a bill that passed the Senate last year and almost passed the House. It enjoys partisan support this year, although last year Gov. Tim Pawlenty indicated he would veto such a bill so long as law enforcement opposed it.

Everybody loves Tom Sorel. That was the message at this afternoon’s gathering of the Senate Transportation Committee. Sorel has been serving as the state’s Commissioner of Transportation since April, but today he faced a confirmation hearing at the Capitol.

How many postage stamps does it take to run a state Senate office? That was the sticky issue debated today during the opening Senate session of 2009. Noting the emergence of email as a tool to communicate with constituents, along with the state’s looming $4.8 billion deficit, Sen. Amy Koch (pictured) proposed that the number of stamps allocated to each legislator be reduced from 5,500 to 3,500. “This is not a big cost savings,” the Republican from Buffalo acknowledged, “but I did a little math and it’s over $56,000.”

Will Thursday be the last day of Carol Molnau’s tenure as transportation commissioner? It appears so.

Senate Transportation Committee officials are declining comment until after Thursday morning’s Senate floor session, and TPT’s Mary Lahammer is reporting what we’ve been hearing — that Molnau’s confirmation will be on the agenda Thursday.

If so, it is likely that [...]

Cartoonist Craig Livingstone depicted state Sen. Steve Murphy, D-Red Wing, in the uniform of a Nazi “brownshirt” saying, “Ve vill round up all Republican bridge engineers who vorked at MnDOT since… 1967.” The cartoon, which ran in the print edition of the Red Wing Republican Eagle on Jan. 19, elicited a disapproving letter to the [...]