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The end of the 2025 Oregon Legislature is nigh.

How do we know?  House Speaker Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, and Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake Oswego, said so.

They operated under long-existing legislative rules that hold an expansive concept of time. The presiding officers declared “Sine die is imminent” on Tuesday. That was more than a month before the Legislature’s constitutional deadline to adjourn, which is June 29.

“Sine die,” for those of us not conversant in ancient languages, is a Latin phrase (“without day”) that refers to adjourning without a specific date for resuming business. In other words, the year’s legislative session is concluded, finished, terminated …

More or less.

The Legislature could always return for a special session(s), which seems increasingly likely in 2025 amid the state, national and global economic upheaval. Not to mention uncertainty about what will happen with transportation funding.

Oops, I just mentioned that uncertainty. A September special session, anyone?

Sine die declarations are an exercise in expediency, slashing the public notice requirements for committee meetings. In the Oregon Legislature, committees are where the actual work occurs. Well, the work that isn’t done behind closed doors.

The Senate and House have similar rules. For example, Fahey decreed committees may meet on one hour’s notice instead of 48.  Initial public hearings will require only 24 hours’ notice instead of 72.

Fahey’s declaration, read on the House floor by Speaker Pro Tempore David Gomberg, D-Otis,

said the normal notification requirements were being suspended to “provide for an orderly move toward sine die adjournment.” House rules allow such a declaration no more than 35 days before the constitutional deadline for adjournment “if the Speaker determines that adjournment sine die of the session is imminent or that the public interest would be seriously prejudiced by delay.”

Is shortened notice of meetings really in the public interest? I suppose it depends on one’s legislative goals. We’re at a stage where political clarity seems elusive.

Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, aptly described the political scene this week: “This is the point in the session when the Capitol becomes hardest to navigate: The chaos sets in as people realize their bill is more likely to die than become law.

“Tensions rise. Nerves fray. Emotions begin to drive decisions on big issues and small ones alike. It’s an exciting yet dangerous phase. The ‘law of unintended consequences’ looms large, and none of us fully knows the complex formula that will determine how — and when — we adjourn. From experience, I know that by this point, most key decisions on major bills and the overall budget have already been made or soon will be.

“This is also the moment that tests the strength of leadership. Do our leaders truly have the trust of the caucuses they lead? Trust is the most valuable — and most perishable — commodity in this building.”

Most policy committees have shut down. Lawmakers have little to do, other than vote, if they’re not members of the remaining open committees.

As a sign of the final days – uh, weeks – the Legislature’s budget committee is starting to move big-ticket items to the Senate and House floors for approval. The Ways & Means Committee on Friday is scheduled to act on a two-year State School Fund of $11.4 billion.

Most bills are not controversial. They will continue to pass with substantial bipartisan backing. On a 51-0 vote, the House on Thursday approved House Bill 3582, which removes the statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse and for sexual assault.

(Eight Republicans and Democrats were excused. The House also is down one member because Rep. Courtney Neron, D-Wilsonville, was appointed to the Senate.)

Yet this also is a time of heightened partisanship. House Democrats on Thursday thwarted a Republican attempt to force a vote on repealing the state’s controversial wildfire hazard map.

The Senate had unanimously passed the repeal, Senate Bill 83, on April 22. The measure now sits idly in the House Rules Committee. Republicans contend Democrats are stalling action to  pressure them into diverting much of next year’s income tax “kicker” into wildfire protection and response.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol on Thursday, the Senate held an intense debate that featured Central Oregon senators on opposing sides of a wide-ranging gun control measure. After rejecting the Republican alternative, Democrats passed Senate Bill 243 on a 17-12 party-line vote.

Sen. Anthony Broadman, D-Bend, led off the Democratic speakers. Sen. Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, countered that Republicans would have supported at least one part of the bill but, “Bipartisan[ship]  did not occur in the Capitol of the state of Oregon.”