Now, it gets interesting.
Twenty-nine senators voted to keep the big income/property tax reduction package alive last week.
Not enough to free the bill from a filibuster, but only four votes short.
Perfect. Everyone's vote matters now, everyone has power and there are deals to be made. Showtime.
And who might be more skilled and practiced on this terrain than Jim Smith?
Smith is the driving force behind the tax cut package, an accomplished tactician and negotiator. He guided a gas tax increase through the 2015 Legislature over the governor's veto, hardly an easy task, skillfully working the floor at the end.
Last week, state senators embarked on their journey through a maze of income tax cuts with triggers attached based on revenue projections and property tax reductions attached to a new process of ag land valuation.
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Huh? Yeah, it's complicated. A lot of moving parts. And a lot of room for negotiation.Â
Last week's debate was good stuff, an opening round of feints and jabs, no knockdowns. But it ended with Gov. Pete Ricketts' tax package on the ropes.
Don't bet a whole lot of money against Smith, although the bill in its current form looks a little like Humpty Dumpty. It probably won't look like the same bill a week from now.
So, how many votes are in play?Â
If you take a look at the 15-29 vote on last week's motion to send the tax bill back to committee, essentially removing it from this year's legislative agenda, you might spot a couple more minority votes waiting in the not-voting category, placing opponents in position to sustain a filibuster that would block the proposal.
It takes 17 senators to trap the bill.
But there may be one shaky vote in that minority list while it looks like there might be at least a couple of negotiators on the majority side who could still move either way.
This will be tricky.
But all of that is just conjecture. The insiders have a better view.
What lies ahead is a real-life, real-time exercise in political science practiced off-stage while the Legislature begins to confront its accompanying state budget challenge in the arena.
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So here comes the big budget debate, beginning on Tuesday.
It's a package full of the state's obligations and ambitions with critical decisions ahead on funding for the University of Nebraska, prisons, health and human services, on and on, page after page.
Speaker Jim Scheer has scheduled three days for budget debate this week, including a Wednesday evening session. Â
It's this legislative session's 70th day; decision time.
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A big story in The Washington Post last week centered on a dispute as to whether the national Democratic Party should support Heath Mello in the Omaha mayoral race because of his personal pro-life convictions.
Mello was boosted at a big rally in Omaha Thursday night headlined by Bernie Sanders and Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, deputy Democratic national chairman.
Democratic State Chair Jane Kleeb had secured an appearance in Omaha by Sanders even before the party decided to schedule a national tour featuring the Vermont senator and party leaders.
"Sanders believes in what is happening here in Nebraska, sees it as a model of blending grassroots issue-organizing with electoral politics," Kleeb said in a text message.
"A lot of Dems are pro-life," Kleeb told The Washington Post.
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Breakthrough announcement in Omaha last week clears the path for construction of an ambulatory veterans care clinic adjacent to the Omaha VA Hospital.
The unique and innovative public-private funding partnership represented a tribute to Omaha philanthropists and members of Nebraska's congressional delegation, including former Rep. Brad Ashford who played a lead role in securing the agreement with the Veterans Administration.
Walter Scott, Mike Yanney and Mike McCarthy, familiar names in Omaha's philanthropic community, committed $30 million in private funding through a non-profit called Heritage Services.
That funding will be matched with $56 million in federal appropriations previously secured by former Sen. Ben Nelson.
Sen. Deb Fischer played a key role in getting the bill past the finish line late last year.Â
Good news for veterans and another reminder of the unusual concentration of super-wealthy people who live in Omaha and contribute to their community.
It's also an example of what can be accomplished by dogged pursuit of federal funding for Nebraska projects, a process that used to benefit Nebraska far more before legislative "earmarks" became a convenient political target and were eliminated.
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Finishing up:
* More emphasis and attention recently on prisons than education; how did we get here?
* Freshman Republican Rep. Don Bacon has reported $230,000 in first-quarter contributions to his 2018 re-election campaign. Elected in November, assumed office in January, raising money now for the next battle ahead, that's the Washington drill.
* Gov. Pete Ricketts, answering questions on his most recent call-in radio show: "I am never going to support increasing taxes on anybody."
* Incoming: At last, a couple of Husker basketball players are walking in rather than out the door. Pick a locker anywhere.