Let’s give it another shot.

After wasting $190,131 in taxpayer dollars in last week’sspecial legislative session, Gov. Haley Barbour has calledlawmakers back to Jackson on Monday to do it all over again.

Last week’s session picked up where the 2004 general sessionleft off, replete with stubbornness and acrimony between thegovernor and lawmakers – particularly Democrats in the House.

Barbour called the session for legislators to consider a $109million bond package to fund economic development projects in thestate – primarily an expansion of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems'(formerly Ingalls Shipbuilding) operations in Pascagoula andGulfport.

Unlike the Senate, which went to work Monday, the first day ofthe session, and passed the bill, House members, instead, decidedto grandstand, insisting they be allowed to take up any bond issuesthey see fit, all the while holding Barbour’s economic developmentbill hostage to their whims.

Late Friday, citing the House’s inaction, the Senate voted toadjourn, effectively killing the bill.

Now Barbour is holding lawmakers’ feet to the fire by callingthem back and insisting they pass the bill – or at least takeaction on it.

Some may argue the state is in no financial shape to pass amulti-million bond bill now. Others would say the state would befoolish not to spend money now in order to earn a greater return inthe future. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

Without speaking to the merits of either argument, the point isthis: it’s high time for House members to climb off theirsoapboxes, put their nose to the grindstone and resolve to workwith the Senate and the governor. The state House is quicklyearning – and rightfully so – a reputation for beingobstructionist, partisan and petty.

After five days and $190,131, the session had dragged on longenough. But the residents of Mississippi deserved something fortheir time and money. Instead, they got more of what they’re usedto – a legislative stalemate.

If this is a preview of the 2005 legislative session, it will,indeed, be a winter of discontent. With budget shortfalls,education funding, financing the Ayers desegregation settlement andmore facing the state, this tit-for-tat game between lawmakers andthe governor cannot continue.

In this week’s special session – as well as in the 2005 regularsession – this must be the lawmakers’ resolve: Get to work, findpoints of compromise and give bills a fair shake – and a vote- then get the heck out of Jackson.