Few excepting long-time observers of the legislative process are used to the unseemly haste with which biennial sessions of the Oregon Legislature traditionally close. Small games go on, as legislators hold up bills, to make sure their pets are properly fed.

The result is that some bad bills invariably are passed, to be tinkered into less-bad bills at the next legislative session. Some good bills are buried by monarchical committee chairmen, requiring renewed lobbying efforts two years hence by their proponents.

The two big losses this year, from the standpoint of most Oregonians, were at the hands of the Oregon Senate. It refused to allow Oregonians to pump their own gasoline at service stations, though 46 other states do so without apparent damage to anyone excepting a few service station operators.

And, it refused to allow Oregonians to bypass dentists when they buy false teeth, thereby keeping the dentists’ excessive markups in false teeth costs sacred.