A two-day special session in Albany concluded Tuesday with such limited results that some wondered why lawmakers returned at all. NY1’s Josh Robin filed the following report.

In the State Senate and the Assembly, the debate was virtually all about the proposal by Governor Eliot Spitzer to allow illegal immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses.

"I think New York State will benefit tremendously from this initiative," said Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat of Manhattan.

"The governor's proposal needs to be overturned,” countered Assemblyman Philip Boyle of Suffolk County.

But for all the fury, none of it was anything more than symbolic. Observers say lawsuits or budget cuts might eventually halt Spitzer's hot-button plan.

On the flip side, the immigration emotion sucked almost all the life out of other lawmaking during this two-day session. As lawmakers departed, there wasn't too much to show.

"I'm not sure that they're able to say that they came and did anything substantive," said Barbara Bartoletti from the League of Women Voters.

There was no voting on big-ticket agreements like reform or changes in the structure of public construction budgets.

Furthermore, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver pulled items that had already received a rare, joint thumbs-up from Spitzer and State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. Among them was speeding up affordable housing at the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The same went for a measure enforcing a ban on unwanted fliers from collecting outside New Yorkers' homes. Even

gone from the table was a bill making it a felony to display a noose, just a day after another surfaced in Brooklyn.

As for who was to blame for the lack of progress, there was the familiar game of finger pointing in the capital.

Silver blamed Bruno.

"I just think that the senator wasn't ready to make any deals, plain and simple," said Silver.

Bruno blamed Silver and, especially, Spitzer.

"This governor doesn't get it,” said the Senate majority leader. “He just doesn't get it.”

Spitzer has blamed Bruno.

However, there were some bills that passed, including one that grants benefits to several emergency medical workers injured or killed during the September 11th terrorist attacks who were originally denied them.

"The money is important. It will help me a little bit financially,” said Marvin Bethea, a paramedic who was injured on 9/11. “But, also important to me is the benefits and the recognition because so often we hear about the heroes of 9/11 and constantly the EMS workers are totally forgotten."

Meanwhile, there is word both houses could return to Albany again soon, to take up more unfinished work.

- Josh Robin