There is now officially one week to go in the 2006 legislative session, although legislative leaders say they'd like to finish before May 22. It's certainly possible that they could, even though it's not worth making a bet on it.

Right now it looks like the big obstacles remain stadium legislation and abortion language that's holding up health and human services funding in the Senate. The abortion measures have already been passed by the House and are backed by the MCCL--Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life--the state's largest anti-abortion organization. They say the state should not pay for abortions for low income women on state subsidized health insurance plans, even though the state Supreme Court ruled in 1995 that the state has to. The other measure would require more information to be collected about judges who allow minors to get abortions without parental approval.

It looks like there aren't enough votes in the Senate to keep the amendments off the HHS funding bill. Senators opposed to the abortion language stripped the funding off a larger budget bill to buy more time to work on rounding up votes. Majority Leader Dean Johnson called the funding bill critical. It includes money for things like incarcerating sexual sociopaths and to prepare for a bird flu pandemic.

As for the stadium, it's clear that the Hennepin County Twins plan is a must-have for House Republicans. Just why isn't so clear. The Star Tribune published a poll Sunday that shows most Minnesotans still don't believe the Twins, Vikings or Gophers need a new stadium. The Hennepin County plan polls slighly better than other plans, but 49 percent still oppose it compared to 40 percent who like it.

The stadium conference committee, the bonding bill conference committee and the budget bill conferees are all scheduled to meet Monday. House Speaker Steve Sviggum said Friday once the bonding bill is finished there won't be many legislators who want to stay in St. Paul.

If you missed it, Patty Wetterling won the DFL endorsement Saturday to face Republican Michele Bachmann November. IP candidate John Binkowski will also be on the ballot. MPR's Laura McCallum had a clip in her story of Wetterling at the podium sounding as she's ready for a fight with Bachmann:

"She's bad for this district! She's bad for America! She's bad for families! She's bad for children! She's bad for everything I believe in! I have the ability to pull people together, I've proven that to you for 16 years," Wetterling said.

This should be interesting.