This week's Skinny--available online shortly!--mentions that House Speaker Jim Weiers had given up negotiating with Senate President Tim Bee and was going to try to get his House budget passed. We said that he might have trouble doing that--and sho nuff, he did. Yesterday, the House budget went down to defeat, with 27 yea votes and 31 nays.

Weiers had trouble from both both ends of his caucus--the far-right crowd thought it spent too much, while the far-left crowd thought it spent too little. One top of that, the Democrats held together in opposition.

This is the end result of last year's election, when Democrats gained seats in both the House and the Senate.

What's next? We hear that Bee will easily pass his budget in the Senate. What happens to the Senate budget in the House is anyone's guess, but one of our more reliable sources thinks it will pass with few changes. And then, once they wrap up a few outstanding details, it's Sine Die.

(A few days ago, one of our posters asked what "Sine Die" meant. As I recall from all those years of high-school Latin, it means "Let's get the hell out of here, already." Scholars in the audience, feel free to weigh in.)