Missouri lawmakers had been told they might still be in session today, still considering overrides of Gov. Jay Nixon's vetoes of 32 bills and more than 150 budget line-items.
But their veto session started at mid-day Wednesday and was over in less than 24 hours.
The House went into session at 11 a.m. Wednesday - and finished about 16 hours later at 3 a.m. Thursday.
The Senate began at noon Wednesday and ended about 1 a.m. Thursday when it became clear that Democrats, angry over use of an infrequently used parliamentary move to end a filibuster of the abortion waiting period bill, would filibuster to block other override attempts.
The Senate ended its veto session without considering overrides of seven line-item vetoes and several other bills that the House voted to override Wednesday night.
"The minority leader said they weren't going to allow any other bills to be passed," Majority Floor Leader Ron Richard, R-Joplin, told reporters early Thursday morning. "I wasn't willing to go and do PQs on each one of those line items and those bills."
A "PQ" is legislative shorthand for the parliamentary "previous question" motion to stop debate; it requires a simple majority vote to be passed.
The procedure is used regularly in the House. But the Senate prides itself on being the chamber where members can talk freely - about anything and everything including, at least sometimes, the actual issues involved in the bill being discussed - for as long as lawmakers want to talk.
Research by the Senate's Information office shows the PQ motion made only 28 times - covering only 11 issues - since 1970.
It generally has been used to break a filibuster when a majority of the senators really want a bill to be passed - like the abortion waiting period measure.
Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, reminded reporters the Senate's rules allow for both the filibuster and the previous question option to stop it.
While the Senate's rules require only five members to sign the motion, 21 Republicans signed Wednesday night's request to halt the abortion bill filibuster. "They don't sign that lightly," Richard said.
During the regular session last spring, he noted, "We worked six, eight or 10 times on that pro-life bill, day and night, and we had a deal toward the end of session."
That deal involved letting a vote happen on the abortion bill, in exchange for the Senate's Republican leaders not seeking votes on two other, controversial bills the Democrats also planned to block.
Dempsey acknowledged that abortion still is legal in the state, as required by federal law.
But, he reminded reporters, "Abortion is a very difficult issue affecting both the mother and the child."
And, while he understands that many people considering an abortion are dealing "with difficult circumstances," Dempsey said: "I hear a lot of talk about the (pregnant) woman and I hear very little about the (unborn) child."
Sen. Paul LeVota, D-Independence, said the filibuster was necessary to convince senators to uphold Nixon's veto of a "ridiculous bill against the women of Missouri."
He called the Republicans' PQ motion "a complete trick to get (the override vote) done."
LeVota and Sen. Scott Sifton, D-Affton, both said it's too soon to determine whether the Democrats' unhappiness with Wednesday's late-night PQ motion will spill over into next year's debate.
"The previous question is tantamount to the "nuclear option' in the Missouri Senate," Sifton said. "It is not something on the one hand that is used lightly, and it is certainly not something that is taken lightly."