The drama in Albany took more twists and turns Wednesday. The mostly Republican coalition refused to attend the day's special session saying it's unconstitutional. The session ended minutes after it started with nothing accomplished and afterwards the Democrats said they'll send their members home because they believe any work they do during the special session is invalid because Governor Paterson only called the Senate into special session and not the Assembly.

While this stalemate over who's in charge drags on the work of the people is not getting done and that's leading to growing frustration among the citizens of this state. Voters though have limited options when it comes to what they can do to change the Senate before the next election.

"They can write letters. They can get their lobbyists moving," suggests University at Buffalo law professor Jim Gardner. Or, citizens can do what the people of Iran are doing and take to the streets.

"People in Iran are doing more to protect their popular sovereignty than people in New York right now," says Gardner.

New Yorkers are unlikely to go to the same extremes as the Iranians anytime soon, but another avenue for change that has been used before in New York is a constitutional convention. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani makes a case for it today in a New York Times opinion piece, But it's a method that could take years to bring about any actual change. It also won't solve the current problem in the Senate where the countdown is on to June 30th. That's when a number of bills impacting billions of dollars for communities across the state are set to expire.

The governor's ordering of the Senate into extraordinary session appears to be having little impact and that's because he does not have much power to back up his order. "He has some tools at his disposal to influence what the Legislature does. He can promise to sign or not sign legislation if anything ever comes out of the Senate again, but short of that there isn't much he can do," explains Gardner.

Late Wednesday afternoon Governor Paterson fired back at Senators by saying he will try to withhold their pay and perks until they do their job and if they fight him, he'll take them to court.