Special session starts now: Budget deal is within reach

Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican lawmakers cut a last-minute deal on $46 billion in state spending and tax cuts with just about an hour to spare Monday night, not fast enough to head off a brief special session that started immediately at midnight, but foreclosing the threat of a partial government shutdown this summer.

"We have a deal. We reached across the table and shook hands," Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, told reporters just minutes after it was struck. "This is how politics should work."

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