» Ken Herman: While you were sleeping, they were voting,

Three things for which I don’t want to be in charge of explaining to the space monkeys when they arrive here from the planet Nipzor:

1. How come sometimes the guy who gets the second most votes gets to be president?

2. How did Texas manage to lose to Kansas in football last season?

3. Why, on the third day of a 30-day special legislative session, the Texas Senate convened at 12:08 a.m. Thursday?

But there we were (or at least I was. You were sleeping or doing some other time-appropriate activity) for the just-after-midnight special session, during which it took senators about 80 minutes to vote final approval to two sunset bills (the actual voting took less than two minutes) and set hearings starting Friday on the 19 other topics that Gov. Greg Abbott added at 12:43 a.m.

The sunset bills — needed to keep several state agencies in business — are the cause of the current special session. But those other 19 topics are the reason.

As my friend Steve Levine tweeted philosophically, “Can they debate sunset before sunrise?”

They can and they did. And they did because they were facing an important deadline. No, they weren’t. Oh if it were that simple.

The procedural explanation for the odd sleepy-time session is that Senate Republicans did not have enough votes on Wednesday to suspend a rule so they could vote same-day final approval to the sunset bills and send them to House members, who, best I know, were engaged in time-appropriate activities as the Senate was in session very early Thursday.

That’s the procedural explanation. The political explanation for the unusual Senate session is that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is a middle-age man in a hurry. What he’s in a hurry to do is get his Senate to approve all 20 issues on the special session agenda by the middle of next week.

The sooner, the cheaper for taxpayers footing the bill for this special session that many think unnecessary. More on point, Patrick is eager to put the pressure on House Speaker Joe Straus, who, though a Republican like Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott, is not on board with some of the session issues, including school vouchers and the transgender bathroom bill.

After losing control of a controlled burn in Hays County on Wednesday, the Austin Water Utility said Thursday that it won’t hold any more planned burning of brush until its process is reviewed.

The planned burn in a rural area west of Buda jumped its boundaries Wednesday afternoon, burning between 200 to 250 acres in addition to the 560 acres that the utility had planned to burn that day. No people or animals were injured, and the fire never reached any structures, said Daryl Slusher, Austin Water Utility’s assistant director.

“I’m interviewing my staff today, and we’re not going to do any more burns until after the Austin Fire Department’s review is done,” Slusher said Thursday. “The protocols in place are supposed to keep this from happening.”

By 9 p.m. Wednesday, the fire Fire exceeds prescribed zone by more than 200 acres Austin was contained, but it rekindled Thursday morning before firefighters, who were already monitoring the site, contained it a second time.

“We’ll probably have hot spots here for two to three days,” Austin Fire Division Chief Palmer Buck said Thursday.

It’s still unclear why the fire escaped the planned area; the review will determine that, Slusher said. Typically, a team ignites brush near some edges of the planned area that, based on the wind direction, will cause the fire to move inward, farther into the planned burn area, he said.

The burn area was between RM 967 and RM 150, on private land where Austin Water Utility bought easements for the purpose of protecting Barton Springs.

The fire escaped its northern boundaries, jumping across a rural dirt road, Slusher said. The fire headed north, then turned a bit to the west. Firefighters kept an eye on an unoccupied structure that was nearby, but the fire never reached it.

That was the only section of the fire that escaped, Slusher said.

Austin Water Utility coordinates with fire officials and makes the decision to burn only when certain requirements are met, including predicted weather, winds, heat, humidity and the amount of brush, Slusher said. The team checks those factors permits gal some the most control requirements