The state Legislature’s special session is ready to adjourn Wednesday morning, after moving at lightning speed to close out post-session work.

Lawmakers tackled 10 bills and one resolution, and will finish after two and a half days. The Assembly will pass only three of those 10 bills Wednesday morning, when the state House and Senate finish their respective third readings.

The Legislature’s three successes, however, were nothing to sneer at. The House will sign off on a bill to fund $20 million in water projects and a registration measure for special mobile machinery fleets. And the Senate will approve a bill to reform the unemployment insurance system that its sponsors say will save Colorado businesses at least $150 million over the next five years.

Lawmakers killed several controversial bills, including one that would have established a new marijuana DUI standard for drivers. The bill, supported by both Democrats and Republicans, passed the House and only failed in the Senate because a lone supporter wasn’t present. The measure died on a 16-16 vote.

But the “centerpiece” of the session, in the words of one Republican, was a reincarnation of a bill to create civil unions for gay couples, which had been filibustered to death last Tuesday by the House GOP.

Gov. John Hickenlooper had called upon lawmakers to pass civil unions when he announced the special session, but it was not to be. The bill was a political time bomb, and had sparked an enormous outcry from the gay community. Republicans again killed the bill on Monday after hours of more emotional testimony. One Republican lawmaker, Don Coram of Montrose, even said his son is gay, but that he still couldn’t bring himself to vote for the measure.

And yet the special session was a success in many ways, according to both Capitol Democrats and Republicans.

The water projects bill and the unemployment insurance reform bill were huge, and were approved almost unanimously, and they agreed easily on the machine fleet registration measure, a relatively minor bill.

“It was pretty smooth. Pretty quiet,” said Sen. Minority Leader Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs. “The water projects bill and unemployment insurance were very, very big for Colorado business.”

Senate Majority Leader John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, said Capitol Democrats had had three main priorities for the session — the civil unions bill, the water projects measure and the unemployment insurance bill.

“So we got two out of three. That’s pretty good,” he said. “Overall, this went very well.”

Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, sponsored the unemployment insurance bill. He said the bill was a “silver lining” to the special session, despite the overtime legislators had to put in to pass it. The bill sailed through the special session with overwhelming bipartisan support, and Liston said he was grateful that the measure had gotten a second chance.

“Better late than never,” Liston said.

But Republicans complained repeatedly that the special session had been unnecessary. Several said many measures could have been passed last week, but didn’t because Hickenlooper and the Democrats orchestrated the special session to give civil unions another run.

“I don’t think it was any secret that this was about civil unions,” said Rep. Mark Waller, R-Colorado Springs. “If civil unions had passed in the regular session, we wouldn’t have had a special session.”

Democrats, however, have contended that unanimity couldn’t be reached in the Senate on House bills that had perished. When the civil unions bill died in the House, it took 29 other bills down with it, and when senators tried to attach several of those to bills they were passing, Republicans and Democrats couldn’t agree on how to do it.

And though the civil unions bill has died twice this year, Morse said it didn’t matter.

“It’ll be law by February,” he said. “The Democrats will take back the House and hold the Senate, and this will be one of the first things they do next session. And the governor will probably sign it as soon as it passes.”

House Speaker Frank McNulty, right, R-Highlands Ranch, talks to journalist during a break in the special session at the Capitol in Denver on May 14, 2012. Gov. John Hickenlooper called the special session for lawmakers to vote on Civil Unions and other issues not completed when last weeks general session ended. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski) Photo by STF

Ed Andrieski