Senate budget coalition remains intact as special session starts

The regular session of the Legislature ended Thursday night, as scheduled, but there is still work to do – namely, agree on a supplemental budget that will close the $1.1 billion gap in the two-year operating budget adopted in 2011.

It was clear a couple of hours before the midnight deadline that a budget agreement was well out of reach, for reasons I’ll explain. And shortly after midnight, meaning very early Friday morning, the governor called the Legislature into a special session, to begin at noon Monday (although no formal actions will be taken in the Senate before Wednesday, for reasons u...