What Does “Sine Die” Mean?

We’ve written the words “adjourned sine die” a lot over the past month or so. What exactly does it mean? When a legislature adjourns sine die, it signifies the legislative body has concluded its meeting without setting a day or time to reconvene. It literally means to adjourn “without a day.” For lawmakers, it signifies "time to go home."

This is an important designation for the majority of state legislatures that are part-time and typically finish up their business for the year in the springtime or early summer. For full-time legislatures like the U.S. Congress, a sine die adjournment is more ceremonial and typically occurs at the end of the biannual or annual session before going home for the holiday season in late December. For example, the Congressional sine die adjournment takes place for only a brief period between the end of the year and when members reconvene in the new year either to continue the second year of a particular Congress or to begin a new Congress after fall elections (e.g., we’re currently in the first year of the 118th Congress). And note that a sine die adjournment is different from a temporary break in legislative proceedings, which is called a “recess.” 

A sine die adjournment has significant ramifications for the life of legislation. When a state legislature adjourns sine die, all active bills not yet enacted typically die with it and would need to be reintroduced in the next legislative session and start the entire legislative process anew. There are several exceptions to this rule. The biggest exception is if the state legislature allows bills to “carry over” from the previous year’s session (we have a list of carryover states here). If the legislature allows bills to carry over to the next year, then the bill introduced one year can be taken up again the following year once the legislature reconvenes for its new session. However, suppose advocates would like to revive a bill that failed to pass before sine die adjournment. In that case, their best option is to hope for a “special legislative session” where the legislative returns to take up vital business that developed between scheduled legislative sessions or — more common these days — to finish up legislative business lawmakers failed to complete during the scheduled legislative session. 

For example, the South Carolina Legislature ran up against a statutorily mandated sine die adjournment of 5 pm last Thursday. Lawmakers were forced to adjourn sine die at that time but hadn’t finished important business, such as enacting a budget or completing the debate on new abortion restrictions. Therefore, Gov. Henry McMaster (R) signed an executive order on Friday calling the legislature back into a special session beginning today. 

Each legislative body might have its own ceremonial (or celebratory) aspects of a sine die adjournment. For example, the Florida House has a 100-year-old tradition to mark the end of a regular legislative session, where the sergeants-at-arms conduct a coordinated dropping of handkerchiefs. In 1923, the handkerchief drop signaled to the Senate that the House had adjourned sine die. Of course, at this year’s sine die, Florida lawmakers came up with their own celebration. 

Sign up for Morning MultiState

For more timely insights like this, be sure to sign up for our Morning MultiState weekly morning tipsheet. We created Morning MultiState with state government affairs professionals in mind — sign up to receive the latest from our experts in your inbox every Tuesday morning. Click here to read past issues and sign up.