Mike Mulcahy is still on vacation

In what promises to be a marathon session,you'll have no trouble keeping up with the nuts-and-bolts of things just by visiting the MPR news site. I promise. So I'm going to "blog" tidbits during the day you won't find from the debate.

I'm on metaphor watch, for the most part. MPR colleague Tim Pugmire and I have observed that reps and senators, apparently in search of the perfect sound bite, are resorting to more and more metaphors. So we'll record them here as they come along, and see tomorrow which ones make the news.

And, no, I won't be writing through the entire day, since it looks like it will include the entire night. But check back here often.

-Bob Collins

House session

2:31 - Rep. Mark Olson invokes metaphor #1 by noting the state is like a "boat going over the dam." Metaphor effectiveness rating:

2:36 - Rep. Sondra Erickson, immediately after the third reading is announced of the Omnibus Tax Bill, invokes a "point of personal privilege," to announce there are two members having birthdays today. And there'll be cupcakes served. Applause all around.

3:03 p.m. - Tax bill passes. Rep. Sviggum announces a vote to "suspend the Constitution" to take up the health and human services bill (the GOP caucus has been twisting arms to get support for the cigarette tax). I announce to the newsroom (which has been tracking action for planning purposes on All Things Considered) that the constitution is being suspended to take up the bill. Colleagues stream from their offices with worried faces, no doubt with visions of tanks rumbling down Rice Street. The vote to suspend the Constitution is approved. We all feel relatively the same as our state government careems lawlessly ahead. We wonder whether we'll still need fishing licenses.

3:13 - Rep. Mark Buesgens invokes story of Socrates who, he says, was put to death for refusing to participate in the Athenian democracy as a way to say the process that created the cigarette tax was not honest. Close enough to metaphor for me. Story is probably too long to make TV news. Metaphor rating:

There's a provision in the bill favored by the Minnesota Concerned Citizens for Life requiring anesthesia for fetuses to be aborted. Many legislators likely to approve the bill because of that provision are against the cigarette tax and are trying to separate the issues so they can vote for one and against the other. The effort failed.

4:06 p.m. - Video feed on TV and Web freezes as Rep. Kent Eken makes an appeal on nursing home reimbursement. His image is frozen...suspended as it were. Like the Constitution.
Apparently the power at the Capitol has gone out.

Capitol reporters are suggesting someone filed a "lights out" bill.

4:45 p.m. - Officials say they intend to keep going this evening starting around 5 without electricity for microphones, cameras etc. They're rounding up court reporters to handle transcriptions and will give their floor speeches, presumably, in booming voices. Not sure how they'll take votes but perhaps the raising of hands. You know, the old way of doing things.

There's a metaphor in there somewhere.