INDIANAPOLIS -- Lawmakers converged on the Indiana Statehouse Thursday for another attempt to pass a budget.

The special session called by Gov. Mitch Daniels will give lawmakers a limited amount of time to get a budget deal in place, or risk a complete shutdown of state government.

During the regular session, negotiations bogged down over how much money to spend on schools and how much to take out of the state surplus to compensate for nose-diving tax revenue.

Unlike a normal session, the House chamber was pretty much empty Thursday morning, 6News' Norman Cox reported.

Normally, dozens of interns are busy putting papers together for lawmakers, but there are no interns at a special session, and since there's only one bill and it hasn't been introduced yet, there's no paper to shuffle.

Lawmakers know they're under pressure from constituents to get the job done this time.

"I voted for the first budget," said Rep. John Barnes, a Democrat from Indianapolis. "I think that a lot of people are upset that we didn't get the job done, didn't close the deal, and so the concern here is to get it done as quickly as possible."

But any hope of bipartisanship faded quickly when Republicans refused a Democratic request to override the normal constitutional time limits so a bill could be passed in as little time as possible.

"And had we waited until Monday to move that forward, all we're doing to the taxpayers of the State of Indiana, and we'll get blamed for it regardless, we'll just spend an extra day in session, because we just do it Monday instead of today. I think we all realize that," said Rep. Russell Stilwell, D-Boonville.

Republicans said they're willing to fast track the budget bill, but not an accompanying bill on the Capital Improvement Board, which they said they believe Democrats intend as a vehicle to expand gambling in the state.

"We're told it's a CIB. bill. But it was represented to me directly by the highest authority that at least three gaming provisions are included, or to be included in this bill," said Rep. Brian Bosma, R-Minority Leader.

The budget bill is expected to be introduced Thursday afternoon. The Ways and Means Committee would vote on it on Monday.

On Thursday, the full House will vote on amendments to the bill, with a final floor vote set for next Thursday.

Then, the bill would move on to the Senate, where it would likely undergo substantial changes before moving to a conference committee, which wasn't able to work out a compromise in April.

The special session will cost taxpayers about $75,000 a week, including daily expense allowances totaling about $12,000 and travel allowances of about $13,000.