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It looks like one of the ways we may survive the Incredible Senate Chaos of 2009, and actually get at least basic legislation passed is by having Governor Paterson call a special session.
Why would that be any better than the current broken session? Well, it seems that in a special session, the Governor sets the active list, removing one key bone of contention for now.
The Democrats have put forward an offer for running the special session. Liz Benjamin noted, though, that the Senate "could come to Albany, gavel in and then gavel right back out without doing a thing."
Hopefully, this will at least avoid the trainwreck of routine legislature going unpassed, but I suspect there's more brinksmanship to come, special session or not.
(And for the longer run, the New York Times has some suggestions I like, though I'm not really sure any of the Senate leaders in either party, who'd be cut out by that proposal, are listening.)
Updates, via Liz Benjamin: Paterson's asked my former Congressman and LG, Stan Lundine, and former Republican Senator John Dunne to act as mediators. Lundine seems like a good voice of reason to me, though I don't remember much about Dunne. (Here's a piece on Dunne and Attica that Google found for me.) Paterson also suggested having the chief judge or his predecessor run the session if the two parties can't agree.
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