Past 20 years of Sine Die’s scramble to the finish

On the last day of Georgia’s legislative session, known as Sine Die, the General Assembly races to pass dozens of bills, many of which have been patiently waiting for weeks for a vote.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of 20 years of voting data found that 17% of all actions by the Legislature happened on this final day, sometimes in the post-midnight hour after the session officially ends.

The 2,700 total votes cast on the final day of every session for the past two decades include final passage or rejection of bills, adjournments, adoptions and motions that keep legislators busy as they rush to finish their work.

Legislative activity has followed consistent ebbs and flows over the past two decades. After Crossover Day, the deadline for bills in one chamber to go to the other, actions on the floor slow until it ramps up in the final days.

The final day of action is almost evenly split with activity in the House and the Senate, with 53% of the last day’s votes over the past 20 years coming from the Senate.

The action starts around 10 a.m. and ends after midnight. Since 2016, more legislators are staying late for final votes into the early hours of the morning, with 87% of post-midnight votes in the past two decades occurring after 2016.

The latest lawmakers have stayed is 12:47 a.m. That happened in 2017 with a contentious vote to pass Senate Bill 130, a rewrite of Georgia’s adoption law to include legal protection for child placement agencies that don’t offer services to gay parents. The earliest the session has ended is 10:10 p.m. during a COVID-19-delayed session June 26, 2020.

Last year, the session finished at 12:15 a.m.

In 2016, almost 20 votes were cast after midnight, setting a record. The years 2017 and 2022 held the second-highest number of late night votes with more than 10 votes each after midnight.

In 2008, legislators cast the most votes on Sine Die with 211, notably with no votes after midnight.

So far this year, lawmakers have voted 636 times, similar to last year, when 592 votes were cast before Sine Die. That year, more than 120 votes were cast in the final 24 hours of the session.