The last night of the 2007 Regular Legislative Session came and went with minimal fanfare. There were several bills that managed to squeeze through the Senate and House that will help our state; I’ll review those later.

Because it is difficult to cover everything that happened on Saturday in one coherent article, here are some incoherent random thoughts along with some pictures I took during the long night.

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With only a few minutes to go, the Senate literally ran out of things to work on and the Senate President was forced to call up bills on first reading to fill in time. While it does not make for riveting television, the Senate leadership should be applauded for dealing with the controversial and important bills early.

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Major kudos to newly minted Senate Minority Leader Don Caruth who went through his first session as though he had done it before. The Senator has several years as a legislator under his belt, but he will be the first to tell you that the Minority Leader position is an entirely different role. The transition was extremely smooth and Republicans were successful thanks to his leadership.

While Senator Caruth will always be a peacemaker and deliberative, on many occasions he publicly and eloquently challenge the Democrats. Without a doubt, he represented the Senate Republicans well.

He is also in the running for best loved Minority Leader. On the last night his wife set out a tremendous spread of food that was delicious. Her chocolate cheese log did horrible things to my waistline.

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The last day of session is always a frustrating staccato of hurry up and wait. Much of the afternoon was spent away from session so that the Senate would have enough things to do when the cameras turned on for the live broadcast of The Legislature Today. I filled part of the time in Senator Hall’s office, singing with him and playing his guitars.

I even got to teach Senator Shirley Love a song I learned from some friends of mine way in the boonies of Tennessee called, “Five Pounds of Opossum in my Headlights Tonight.” It’s the ballad of a starving motorist trying to run down an opossum for his supper. Let me tell you, it’s a real tearjerker.

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As you may recall, Jordan Thompson joined me during the last week to watch the legislature. He will be writing a guest article for this site and sharing his perspective of the Senate’s workings.

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As is the custom, I will be conducting a completely bogus awards ceremony and handing out fictional trophies to deserving legislators. If you wish to nominate anyone, feel free to write in the comments or email me.

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Finally, you can view pictures of the last night on my Flickr account.