So, after five months the session must end. And once again lawmakers have not finished their work. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

On the bad thing side, the major accomplishments of the regular session will be the bonding bill and the public safety bill--in other words, the work they were supposed to have done LAST year. On the good thing side, they're arguing about big issues: education spending, health care, taxes and transportation. Those are the issues we want politicians to deal with, and they're not ducking them, even if progress is slow.

Is it more important to finish on time or to come up with a good product? Well, last year they finished on time, but they got nothing done. And a bunch of GOP incumbents lost their seats.

So let's go to the news. The governor's proposal of a new 75 cent per pack fee on cigarettes was meant to get negotiations going. It didn't, at least over the weekend. In the Pioneer Press Patrick Sweeney notes that special sessions aren't so special after all:

This will be the third time in a row that Minnesota lawmakers have failed to approve a biennial budget by the constitutional deadline. Pawlenty's spokesman, Brian McClung, said Sunday the governor was "weighing his options" about when to call legislators back to the Capitol for a special session.

"A special session is something that shouldn't be expected, but it's necessary if we're to come out with a finished product," said Rep. Larry Hosch, a Democrat from St. Joseph. "But we should be criticized for it."

Hosch is one of a number of freshmen legislators who campaigned on a get-the-job-done platform in 2004 after lawmakers walked away from the Capitol after failing to approve a capital construction plan or finish most of the other work they faced. He is leading many of those freshmen in promising to refuse their daily expense payments during a special session.

There is nothing unique about Minnesota lawmakers failing to finish their work on time.

"In economic hard times or when the budget is tight, you almost always have a hard time passing a budget because you have so many competing interest groups trying to protect their programs, whether it's education or health care or transportation," said Brenda Erickson, a senior research fellow at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "Compared to other states, Minnesota hasn't had that many special sessions."

But what about that cigarette tax, um, fee? Shouldn't that have broken the gridlock? Not necessarily, says MPR's Michael Khoo:

Republican House Speaker Steve Sviggum says the Pawlenty tobacco fee should be enough to lock up a budget deal.

"To hear that some would say -- anybody would say -- it's not enough, you know, you've got to ask, you know, are they really being reasonable? Are they just trying to bring up roadblocks? Are they trying to bring meltdown to the session? I mean, you have to ask those things."

Even so, Sviggum doesn't just have problems from Democrats with larger spending appetites. On the Republican side, a number of lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have balked at the cigarette charge. That makes it all the more important to reach agreement with Democrats who can help pass a compromise budget if some fiscal conservatives reject the new revenue. But Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung says despite repeated offers no Democrats have agreed to sit down and be briefed on the governor's proposal.

"Friday afternoon the governor makes a significant, substantial offer to try to move things ahead and wrap this legislative session up in a timely manner. And we haven't heard back from the Senate Democrats," he said.

McClung, like Sviggum, also warned DFLers not to get too far ahead of themselves. He says the governor's cigarette assessment was meant as a compromise -- not an invitation to explore other fees, taxes and revenues. University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs says Democrats should heed that warning.

"The Democrats are fooling themselves if they think this governor is rudderless and is running up a white flag. I don't see it that way at all. I think the governor is making a kind of mid-course correction. He knows he has to get a budget through," he said.

Finally, at least DFLers were able to agree on something over the weekend. MPR's Laura McCallum had this item:

More than 1,000 Democrats from around the state have selected Brian Melendez as the new state party chair. At a DFL central committee meeting in St. Cloud Saturday, delegates chose Melendez over former state representative Betty Folliard and former Wellstone staffer Josh Syrjamake. Melendez chairs the Minneapolis and Fifth Congressional district DFL, and says he looks forward to the new challenge.

"This is basically the same job that I've been doing at the local level for the past eight years. I've pretty much done what I could for Minneapolis. I've served four terms. It's time for them to have a change. It's time for me to have a change," he said.

Melendez replaces Mike Erlandson, who decided not to seek a fourth term as party chair.

And as for the fate of this column, I guess I'll keep writing until the end of the special session. After that, who knows? Would you like me to keep going? Let me know.