In Minnesota, special sessions aren't very special anymore

The wife of Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk has worked for the Minnesota Senate since 1975, and last week he quoted her observation on the Legislature's upcoming special session, which will be the eighth such overtime meeting in the last decade.

"She said, 'Special sessions. Why do they call them special? There's nothing special about them anymore,' " Bakk said last week. "And she's right."

The Senate leader's rumination came a few days after Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed three budget bills that together comprise about half of state spending in the next two years, guaranteeing the yet-to-be-scheduled special session.

The decision about the date is on hold until Dayton and GOP House Speaker Kurt Daudt can settle their dispute over education spending. That's got rank-and-file state lawmakers anxiously eyeing summer calendars and work schedules, stuck between the desire to get back to normal and knowing they'll be back for one more round in the political ring.

"I was telling the governor just a few minutes ago, if we're doing this next week, I'm going to have to make some very tough phone calls to some of my members who are planning to be on vacation next week," Daudt said Thursday, after about two hours of budget negotiations with Dayton.

For many state lawmakers, especially those who live far from the Twin Cities, the five months of regular session forces them to juggle day jobs, family obligations and hours behind the wheel going back and forth to their districts.

"For us, with our business, it's a little bit of an irritation," said Rep. Josh Heintzeman, a freshman Republican from Nisswa, a nearly three-hour drive from St. Paul. He helps run a family-owned custom wood interiors business, and aids his wife in the home-schooling of their five children.

Added to that, Heintzeman said, it can be hard to explain the subtleties of the legislative process to voters back home confused by the spending standoff and irritated by overtime sessions. Still, he said, "I'm thankful for the opportunity to do this for my district."

Not every special session is forced by a DFL-GOP budget dispute, though it is one of the two most common reasons. The other has been to meet state spending obligations related to natural disasters, typically floods.

A few other issues have risen to special session level over the years, from sexual predator laws to stadium funding bids.

They used to be less common. The Legislature went from 1971 to 1979 without one special session, and before that from 1967 to 1971. The entire decade of the 1940s had only one, in 1944.

"It's become a perennial breakdown, and it doesn't have to be this way," said Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester. Last week she proposed legislative rule changes aimed at avoiding the type of last-minute rush to pass sweeping budget bills that often lays the groundwork for a special session.

Adjournment deadlines are constitutionally fixed, and knowledge of them should accommodate on-time finishes, Nelson said. "These deadlines do not sneak up on us," she said. "These deadlines are 150 years old."