RALEIGH When Damon Circosta walked into a House committee meeting this week, he expected to hear debate on a simple bill to make judicial elections partisan.

Instead, along with most lawmakers on the committee, he learned the bill had morphed into a 44-page measure that would make sweeping changes to N.C. election laws.

"It showed up with no notice," said Circosta, executive director of the N.C. Center for Voter Education. "The first time that anybody outside of a small group of Republican legislators saw it was in a committee meeting."

Such surprises are par for the course as the legislature sprints toward an adjournment that could come as early as today.

Self-imposed adjournment deadlines, such as last week's deadline for a bill to pass one chamber or the other, have led to hundreds of bills moving through committees and floor votes - many with little time for much debate or scrutiny.

Some bills change completely.

The seven-line Senate Bill 411 would have done away with straight-ticket voting. It emerged in a committee as a bill that would make Stanly County an exception to the way election board members are chosen elsewhere in the state, effectively giving Republicans a majority on the board and opening what campaign watchdog Bob Hall calls "a Pandora's box" for other counties seeking similar exemptions.

Other bills get little attention:

One could give a big tax break to some multi-state corporations that do business in the state. Critics say it would allow some companies to dodge N.C. taxes, potentially costing the state millions. It got virtually no attention until a story appeared this week in The Insider.

The "Founding Principles Act" appeared on the House floor last week. It would require high school curriculums to include a number of principles, including "Private property rights and freedom of individual enterprise," and "Constitutional limitations on government power to tax and spend and prompt payment of public debt." It passed the House and on Wednesday, the Senate.

Democrats complained about an overhaul of the state's environmental rulemaking process that tentatively passed the House late Tuesday. Proponents say it will help businesses steer through confusing regulations. Critics said it would weaken protections of natural resources.

The measure, the result of six statewide hearings, rushed through both houses with little chance for public comment. Minority Leader Joe Hackney, a Chapel Hill Democrat, said the bill "was placed on the calendar here in the dead-of-night session."