Passage of the immigration and taxation measures assured lawmakers and Gov. Matt Blunt of accomplishing a pair of their highest priorities. Had the measures not passed, Blunt threatened to call lawmakers back for a special session.

Lawmakers face a mandatory 6 p.m. Friday adjournment.

The immigration legislation would deny public benefits to people who can't prove they are in the country legally and would penalize businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

It also would penalize employers for misclassifying workers as "contractors" instead of employees — a distinction that, among other things, can shield employers from responsibility if the workers are illegal immigrants.

The taxation legislation is intended to ensure that local governmental entities reduce their property tax rates when assessed property values rise by more than the rate of inflation. It also would expand tax breaks available to senior and disabled homeowners.

Blunt described the property tax measure as "important legislation to help protect Missouri homeowners from a system that has become the shadowy path to higher taxes in our state."

The Missouri Constitution already stipulates, if assessed property values rise by more than inflation, excluding new construction and improvements, local governments are supposed to reduce their maximum allowed tax rate so the total amount of taxes they collect remains roughly the same.

Some local governments have avoided rolling back tax rates by voluntarily setting them below the maximum amount approved by local voters. The legislation requires the tax rate reductions to occur anyway.

At mid-afternoon, the prospects seemed bleak for several other prominent issues. The governor's Insure Missouri plan to expand government-subsidized health insurance for working poor people fell flat quickly in the House. It ultimately got left out of the state's $22.4 billion budget for next year.

Contentious proposals making it illegal to coerce women into abortions and requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification had yet to make it to the Senate floor, where a single senator threatening a filibuster could easily kill a bill on the final day. Republican legislative leaders hadn't ruled them out.

To pass the voter ID bill, for example, lawmakers would need to either achieve a remarkable harmony or become so angry at each other that majority Republicans would be willing to use a rare procedural motion to shut off Senate debate and force a vote on the issue, said Sen. Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City, the sponsor of the proposed constitutional amendment.

There was a strong undercurrent of frustration and resentment heading into the final day — much of it directed at House Speaker Rod Jetton from his fellow Republicans.

Jetton, R-Marble Hill, rubs some legislators the wrong way by working as a political consultant for certain lawmakers' campaigns while simultaneously presiding as the top House member. He angered others this week while working against an effort to repeal a contentious land-use law that quietly passed with his support in 2007.

That law allowed landowners to more easily seek to incorporate as villages, thus bypassing county planning or zoning rules. Immediately after the law took effect on Aug. 28, developer Robert Plaster of Lebanon, who has backed Jetton, sought to create a village of his property near Table Rock Lake, east of Kimberling City.

As Jetton worked against the village-law repeal in the final week of the session, House Republicans caucused in private without him, venting their frustrations amid talk of a coup that never materialized.

Jetton's allies helped filibuster the bill in the Senate. But around 4 a.m. Friday, senators finally passed the village-law repeal — contingent on a deal with Jetton that it would not take effect as law until Aug. 28. The House passed and sent the bill to the governor a few hours later.

Lawmakers also voted to overturn a state Supreme Court ruling affecting the relatives of injured workers.
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The ruling last year reversed the long-held assumption that workers' compensation payments end when an injured employee dies of an unrelated cause. Instead, the Supreme Court said a widow is entitled to continue receiving the payments due to her deceased husband, who had been “permanently and totally disabled."

Legislation sent to the governor Friday would reject the court ruling and bar dependents from receiving their relatives' benefits after they die.

The bill also clarifies that police and firefighters can work longer shifts without triggering overtime laws. That change is necessary because of the voter-approved increase in the state’s minimum wage.