We Are Now in the Senate. The Senate is now discussing HF 2 and a vote will the forthcoming shortly. The Senate has less to talk about--in all likelihood--simply because they don't have a lot of provisions in the bill. They do need to explain some of the compromises that they made to House provisions, as the bills were dramatically different. It's hard to tell how long that will take and how riveting that discussion will be.

The first question to Senator Stumpf was in regard to the childcare allowances that were part of the Senate bill, but were surrendered in conference committee due to stiff opposition from the House confereees.

Discussion has now turned to the lack of a global agreement on the balance of revenue and spending between the Legislature and the Governor and how things will proceed from this point forward. That's a good question and there is no answer to it at this point.

Final passage is upon us and the final vote is 49-16 in favor with three Republicans joining all 46 DFLers in supporting the bill.

So it's onto the Governor and an uncertain fate.