After David Paterson threatened this weekend to hold state senators in Albany for a special session every single day this summer (including weekends and holidays!), all four leaders of the two deadlocked camps (Democrats Malcolm Smith and John Sampson, Republican Dean Skelos, and that other guy, Pedro Espada) met to work out a deal. According to Liz Benjamin at the Daily News, Democrats are willing to accept Espada as president pro tempore of the Senate, something he has been baldly insisting upon. (They've been trying to lure him back into the fold, also, but have been understandably rather halfhearted in that effort.) The leaders asked Paterson for more time to negotiate a power-sharing agreement before he calls a special session tomorrow, but Paterson shot them down.

Also, someone wrote a poem about Pedro Espada. It's an ode to Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven." "Take thy beak from out our heart, take thy form from off the Senate floor!" Assemblyman Rory Lancman wrote. "Quoth [Espada], 'Nevermore!'" Oh, Albany. We'd laugh if our jaw would just unclench for a minute.

The (Dep)Raven [NYDN]
Senate Dems 'Could Live' With Espada As Pro Tem (For Now) [NYDN]