The Arkansas Legislature is nowhere near going home from its increasingly controversial session.
Its members have done plenty already to mark Arkansas as an overly conservative state, given the laws they've passed and sent to the governor this year.
Count among them the ban of nearly all abortions in the state and legislation to allow doctors, nurses and insurers to refuse certain medical procedures based on their own moral and religious beliefs.
Tack on that totally unnecessary stand-your-ground gun bill and the more recent effort to bar transgender athletes from participating in women's or girls' sports.
That last one just hit Gov. Asa Hutchinson's desk, but he's been willing to sign the others.
Unfortunately, there is more to come of the regular session as this Legislature decides for itself when and why it will recess and return later this year.
Legislative leaders took steps last week to keep the state's lawmakers in regular session until at least April 30.
Lawmakers have been in Little Rock since the session convened on Jan. 11. If the session lasts through April, it will be the longest in recent years at 110 days.
Even then, it won't be over, just paused.
For the record, lawmakers haven't been working all those days. They worked short weeks at the outset of the session and may again near the end.
Plus, they have already had one weeklong weather-related break during last month's snowstorm. And they'll take some days off this week to coincide with schools' spring break.
But they'll be back for what House Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, described as "a matter of weeks" under an agreement struck by legislative leaders.
Presumably, the full House and Senate will concur with Shepherd's House Concurrent Resolution 1015, which sets up the extension of the session and its lengthy recess. Senate President Pro Tempore Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, is the co-sponsor.
The pause is actually necessitated primarily by funding related to the ongoing pandemic and by the Legislature's decennial duty to redraw the state's congressional districts. But the resolution would give lawmakers considerably more flexibility going forward.
The two chambers may, by joint proclamation, reconvene at any time to consider vetoes, correct errors and oversights, complete the work on congressional redistricting or consider legislation related to the covid-19 public health emergency and distribution of covid-19 relief funds.
They may also reconvene to consider "the need for further extension of the regular session" or to adjourn the session sine die, or indefinitely.
In other words, they can be in session as much or as little as they choose while redistricting and this covid-19 funding remain in limbo.
That could be a while.
Covid-19 relief funding is, of course, a matter unique to the pandemic. How that federal money gets budgeted may be tied to an ongoing spat between some legislators and the governor over his exercise of executive powers when lawmakers were not in session. With an extended recess, the lawmakers will maintain a say in such matters.
The redistricting job comes around once every 10 years after the U.S. Census is complete. The Legislature must redraw the U.S House districts in Arkansas to reflect in-state population shifts.
Each of the districts must be as nearly equal in population as is practicable, based on the 2020 U.S. Census. It is a chore that often pits the interests of different parts of the state against each other and can be difficult to resolve.
The problem is, because of the pandemic that disrupted last year's decennial count nationwide, the state still does not have the Census results. Redistricting must wait.
So, the plan is for the Legislature to take a long break beginning in May, while they await the population data they must have to redraw the state's congressional districts. Those numbers are now supposed to be released by the U.S. Census Bureau by Sept. 30.
That's really when the redistricting work can begin, which effectively makes the delay in shutting down this legislative session one more unfortunate consequence of the pandemic and the disrupted Census.