Almanac: At the Capitol

As Minority Leader Marty Seifert said this week it's, "budget, bonding and bye, bye." There's not much left to do in the final six weeks of session. Seifert says if leadership continues its pace they will run out of "legislative days" about a week early. Lawmakers are limited to meeting on the floor 120 days over a two year session. They only have about 20 days left to meet on the floor. Committees don't count against the days.

In their weekly briefings, legislative leaders said they want to finish early. Sen. Tarryl Clark didn't want to go so far as to say it was a goal, but she would say it was a "desire to get out early." Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher said "everyone always has a desire to end session sooner." She went on to say she's "optimistic, but conservative." The House has reason to want to get out early, representatives are all up for election. The Senate does not stand for election this year. As leaders pointed out it's rare to get done early. Former Speaker Steve Sviggum used to always say he wanted to get home in time to "plant corn" and I'm not sure that ever happened for him. In the decade I've been working up here we've only gotten out early once and I think it was only about a week early. So plan for a session to end May 19th and be surprised if it ends any sooner.