As the Legislature spent a third week wandering in the wilderness of the special session, frustrated Democrats poised a legitimate question to leadership: "What is the plan?"
The lack of a concise answer from leadership made it evident even before the passage of a budget bill that relies on a massive raid of the state Rainy Day reserve funds: There was no plan.
Senate Finance Chairman Mike Hall, R-Putnam, who is probably too honest by half to be a good politician, conceded that efforts to push a temporary sales tax increase and to revive the tobacco tax bill were his own, and not necessarily backed by leadership.
Actually, there has been no plan since March 15, when with both the House and Senate versions of the budget bill hopelessly flawed, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin sent the Legislature home, saying he would not call them back until they had an agreement on the 2016-17 state budget.
There was still no plan on May 16, when with a state government shutdown looming just six weeks away, Tomblin had no choice but to call the Legislature into special session with the intent, as Hall said at the time, "The governor probably feels like he's got to get people into town and try to hammer something out."
Three weeks later, the Legislature proceeded to pass a bungled budget bill using $245 million of Rainy Day funds and one-time money, a proposal that not only is fiscally inane, but flies in the face of Tomblin's assertion he will veto any bill that uses more than a "few million dollars" of Rainy Day emergency reserve funds to balance the budget.
All along, there was no plan.
For all the rhetoric about waste, fraud and abuse in state government, the House and Senate Finance Committees came up with only about $120 million of spending cuts, and those are primarily the cuts the governor proposed in his budget plan, and account for less than 3 percent of the general revenue budget.
(That's after committee members concluded that broad expanses of state government could not endure additional cuts without layoffs and elimination of important services, including public education, higher education, Health and Human Resources, State Police, Division of Corrections, among many others.)
I'm afraid that, to the extent there is any plan, the plan is to send Tomblin a fatally flawed budget bill in hopes he will have to sign it anyway to avoid a state government shutdown, and if he vetoes it, it gives legislative leaders plausible deniability when they come back to resume the special session to be able to say the governor left them no options but to raise taxes.
Of course, the latter scenario would inevitably result in government shutdown.
Legislators upped the pressure on Tomblin not to veto the budget bill by failing to act on a bill that would permit furloughing of state employees.
While furloughing is not a pleasant option, it would have been preferable to layoffs, potential loss of seniority, and temporary loss of PEIA benefits that would result from a state government shutdown.
Legislators put Tomblin in the position of having to gamble that a balanced budget could get passed in a new special session before the looming July 1 timeline.
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At 13 days, the special session was the longest in 15 years, since the infamous medical malpractice special session of 2001, which lasted 25 days spread over two months from mid-October to mid-December.
Based on memory, and legislative and Charleston Newspapers documents, that was the last time a special session lasted more than 10 days.
At $35,000 a day, the lack of urgency during the special session was remarkable, and more evidence the leadership's intent is to play a game of chicken with Gov. Tomblin, pushing passage of the budget bill to the point where a veto would push the state close to a shutdown.
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Last week, Senate President Bill Cole took heat for breaking a pledge not to campaign for governor while the Legislature is in session, by holding a campaign fundraiser in downtown Charleston on Tuesday. Cole explained, "I'm not a billionaire. If I'm going to run for governor, I'm going to have to figure out where I can raise a bit of money."
Cole has another fundraiser scheduled in downtown Charleston this Tuesday, with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, signer of bills authorizing LGBT discrimination and banning abortions of fetuses that have life-threatening conditions, as the special guest.
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Finally, from the Ethics Commission: 422 registered lobbyists spent a total of $317,935 doing their lobbying thing from January to April. (And if I ever get unshackled from the Legislature, I hope to pull the reports to provide some details.)
That's less than the record $527,797 spent during the same reporting period in 2015, but more than $281,319 in 2014 and $280,825 in 2013
Meanwhile, I noted a couple of weeks back that state Coal Association and Business and Industry Council lobbyist Chris Hamilton appeared to be the first $100,000-plus spender, according to his disclosure, pointing out that Ethics Commission executive director Rebecca Stepto was sending his disclosure back for clarification, since more than $100,000 of his $122,649 total was in the "other expenses" category, without explanation.
Hamilton has since filed a revised disclosure, showing $13,991 of lobbying expenses, with $11,329 of that going for a BIC reception at the Marriott.
The other $108,331 was spending on grassroots campaigns by BIC promoting passage of the right-to-work legislation and repeal of the state's prevailing wage law, primarily through radio and TV ads, and other advertising.
Which reminds me, Sen. Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, has been oft quoted as saying repeal of prevailing wage would save the state $200 million to $300 million a year. Where exactly is that savings built into the 2016-17 budget?
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1220 or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.