Those two little Latin Words

Sine Die has finally come around. For those of you who do not know what Sine Die means, it is latin for “No future date set”. This is the term that is motioned when the Arizona Legislature wishes to end that year’s session, and it marks the end of my time as a page.

Always the interesting event, Sine Die draws all of the lobbyists and former staffers to the capitol for one late, late night of democracy and debauchery. Senators and Representatives alike wait out this long night of voting in their offices, as they patiently hold out for the other chamber to finish their voting. Traditionally, the House always takes roughly a thousand times longer than the Senate to finish voting, and 2015 was no exception to the rule. As it was my final legislative session as a page, I felt that it was important for me to fulfill my final duties and wait out until the final motion was made. Little did I know, however, that this honorable notion left me staying at the Senate until 4am, tired but not regretful.

As per usual, the Senate finished voting on their bills around 9pm, where as the House felt the need to keep open debate on nearly every single item. This lead to an exacerbated time voting on the House floor, and left me sitting in the Senate Page office with my boss, and two other pages playing with the beach volleyball until the sun finally rose the next day.

You can only imagine how happy I was to finally be able to walk onto the senate floor at 4 that morning, and turn on the mic for the Majority Leader, Senator Steve Yarborough, to mumble those beautiful 9 words, “Mr. President, I motion the Senate stand Sine Die”.