Midnight came and went without a deal to keep parts of Minnesota government open. Who pays the price? Nine thousand state workers. Gov. Pawlenty and House Republicans are blaming Senate DFLers for leaving before the midnight deadline. The DFLers say they plassed a bill to keep government running, but the Republicans wanted to put a 10 day time limit on the extension, and they weren't willing to do that. Whatever. There's no deal and no end in sight. MPR's Tom Scheck has the ugly details:

With two and a half hours left before a partial government shutdown, DFL Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson walked into a nearly empty Senate chamber and announced that the Senate was going to adjourn until this morning.

The action ensured a partial government shutdown, since House Republicans didn't support and later defeated a so-called lights-on measure that would continue to fund government at current budget levels. Johnson and his fellow Senate DFLers passed that bill earlier in the evening.

Johnson said the Senate did all of its work and felt negotiations with Gov. Pawlenty and House Republicans were going backward.

"We're not here for show. We're here for good public policy and we think we've done that for the passage of the continuing resolution and we have finished our work for the biennium for which we're in," he said.

Johnson's action was a surprise to many at the Capitol. Less than an hour before the Senate adjourned, Johnson had said they were close to reaching a deal. After the adjournment, many of his DFL colleagues were seen walking around the Senate chamber with their mouths open and their palms up.

The fact is many people may not feel the effects of the shutdown in the short term. By keeping state parks open the Legislature may have taken a great deal of pressure off to get a deal done. Gov. Pawlenty says all previous offers are off the table and negotiations have to start again from scratch. The Pioneer Press gives a sense of what it was like at the Capitol last night:

Throughout the evening, legislators from both the House and Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, lamented their failure to reach a budget deal and, in some cases, referred to the situation the state faces as a constitutional crisis.

"It will be remembered as the great ugliness of 2005," said Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen.

The partial shutdown of state government is unprecedented in Minnesota history. Those employees who will stay home are considered "nonessential'' and work for agencies that had not been funded in earlier bills, including the departments of transportation, human services and education.

Employee Relations Commissioner Cal Ludeman estimated a shutdown would cost taxpayers $2.1 million a day. Most of that money would go to state employees who could collect unused vacation or compensatory-time pay for the first two weeks of a shutdown.

So just to sum up:

left unfunded are K-12 education, human services and transportation.

Immediate impacts: rest stops closed, no new driver's licenses issued, grants to some non-profits halted, some inspections and permits suspended.

Still open: state parks, state patrol, driver's license and tab renewals, active road construction projects.

How does it end: your guess is as good as mine