C'est la vie

With 23 days of this year's 30-day regular session in the books, the Alabama Legislature has passed only a handful of bills. The Senate is bogged down over a bill that would force the state Christian Coalition to reveal its contributors. Democrats are eating their own over a proposal to increase higher education funding by $46 million next year. Legislators still haven't passed the education and General Fund budgets, as they're required by law to do.

Special sessions cost this cash-strapped state about $500,000 apiece, which seems like a lot until you realize that legislators so consistently fail to do their jobs that special sessions are pretty much an annual occurrence. These days, it's just business as usual.