No ayes had it

Every session offers something I can say I’ve never seen before. That happened Friday evening, when two bills failed 0-48 in the Senate.

Normally, a bill doesn’t come to a floor vote unless there’s at least a chance it has the 25 votes needed to pass. Why waste the time, which on Friday involved about four hours deciding if and how to vote?

These two bills involved a capital gains tax and a change in the business and occupation tax that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats said they supported. The GOP-controlled majority caucus brought them up to make that point, sort of a single-digit salute to House Democrats who have proposed them as possible ways to pay for things in their 2017-19 operating budget but don’t plan to vote on until the final compromise budget is set.

Now the question is will that stimulate budget negotiations, or put them off even further? The special session – which has happened so regularly it’s no longer “special” – starts Monday and will eventually let us know.