Early – very early – one morning last week, state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod wandered to the back of the ornate Senate chambers and expressed a feeling shared by many of the other people in the room.

"I would rather stick my finger in a light socket," she said, "than spend another hour in here."

The Chino Democrat's observation was colored by the fact that it came at around 3 a.m., during an 18-hour legislative session on overhauling the state's water system.

But it also reflected a sentiment that could cover a growing number of marathon meetings by California lawmakers on matters of great moment.

The water session marked the fourth time this year that legislators have gone into the wee hours while attempting to hammer out a deal or deals:

• In February, a $42 billion hole in the state budget resulted in five days of legislative histrionics, which included an overnight "lockdown" of the Senate and the deposing of the Senate Republican leader.

• In July, legislators trudged through a 20-hour session before reaching final agreement on a plan to close a $24 billion budget gap.

• In September, lawmakers ended the year's "regular" session at 6 a.m., after all-night meetings that resulted in lots of partisan finger-pointing but little substantial legislation.

Lengthy legislative confabs are by no means a new phenomenon. In 1939, for example, lawmakers wrangled for two days over a proposal to extend unemployment benefits.

In 1963, then-Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh locked recalcitrant Republicans in the chambers overnight until they agreed to vote for a budget. (Unruh even refused their request to requisition cots from the National Guard so members could sleep on the Assembly floor.)

But until recently, such all-night escapades were relatively rare and were relegated to the ends of legislative sessions.

"It's just not good lawmaking, to do things in the dead of night with no public input or scrutiny" said Bob Stern, president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies. "Unless there is an emergency, every bill should be available in print for (at least) three days."

Stern, a veteran politics-and-government attorney who helped draft the state's landmark Political Reform Act in 1974 and served as counsel to the Fair Political Practices Commission, said that intentional or not, the all-night sessions serve to obscure just what's being done.

"Like sausage-making, once you see what's in the bill, just as in the sausage, you might start gagging," he said.

In fact, last-minute additions to an $11.1 billion water bond measure have been harshly criticized for being ill-conceived at best and blatant pork-barrel politics at worst.

All-night sessions in the past usually have been triggered by legislative procrastination in the face of looming constitutional deadlines or financial crises.

But the key motivations behind last week's water marathon, according to legislative leaders, were a desire to go home and a yearning to accomplish something significant this year.

"We have neglected our individual districts and our constituents, and we need to spend more time at home," Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, said during one of the many lulls in water negotiations last week. "We can't spend all our time in Sacramento."

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, acknowledged being consumed by a desire to complete the crusade for a water deal he had begun months ago.

"We have a chance tonight to accomplish something very meaningful … under very trying (economic) circumstances," he said, adding, "I'm just so tired of losing."

Most lawmakers were just plain tired, a condition sleep experts say is not conducive to sound decision-making.

"In general, people become inattentive" when they're sleep-deprived, said Jerome Siegel, a UCLA psychiatry professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Sleep Research at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

"You're unable to hold ideas in your head for any length of time, which certainly can't be good if you're trying to compare various alternatives, which I guess is what legislators mostly are doing."

Siegel said recent research has found that some people do function well on little rest. He also said that age does not appear to be a significant factor in functioning without sleep – which is a good thing, since 32 of California's 120 legislators are past the age of 60, and half of those are 65 or older.

"But in general, people do not function as well when they are tired," he said. "And what seems to happen is that people who are tired often think they are accomplishing more than they are."

Government watchdog Stern, who is part of an effort to revamp California's constitution through a citizens convention, thinks the solution to late-night, behind-the-scenes lawmaking might be a strict constitutional provision that limits last-minute bills to true emergencies.

But there are already rules in place that require legislation be in print and open for public inspection before they are acted on, and the rules are routinely waived by a majority vote of lawmakers.

And in the end, voters and taxpayers may be more interested in the final product – the sausage – than they are in the process or the ingredients.

"I think the attitude of most voters is 'just do your job, we don't care how you do it,' " said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "As long as it's not costing us extra, all we expect is for them to do the people's business."

Call Steve Wiegand, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 321-1076.