With two weeks left, the Missouri legislature has entered the equivalent of the final two minutes of a basketball game. Not only is the ticking clock paramount in terms of strategy, but the outcome is still very much up for grabs.

Major pieces of legislation dealing with access to abortions, illegal immigration, voter ID requirements, campaign finance limits and various tax credit programs have yet to gain final approval.

Three people control the fate of the most controversial bills. They are young Republican senators who are rarely in the headlines. How they react to the pressures of the session's end-game will be as important as the actions of any other legislators in the state.

They are Sens. Tom Dempsey, Jack Goodman and Brad Lager. Dempsey (R-St. Charles) is the newest addition to the Senate. He was the floor leader in the House before ascending to the Senate in a special election last fall. Lager (R-Nodaway) is from a rural district in northwest Missouri. He's the favorite to win the Republican nomination for treasurer this fall. Goodman (R-Lawrence), a lawyer from southwest Missouri, is the only one in leadership. He became assistant floor leader last summer.

The story of how they ended up as gate-keepers begins at the close of last year's legislative session. On the last day of the 2007 session, senate Republicans invoked a parliamentary procedure - moving to the previous question. The PQ closes debate. Unlike the U.S. Senate where 60 of 100 votes are needed to close debate, the Missouri Senate needs only a constitutional majority. For the 34-member body, that's 18 votes.

The House regularly PQs to end debate, but in the Senate,  tradition allows the senators to speak until their verbosity is sated, so PQs are rare -- and traumatic.

Last year, the session ended with Senate PQs on abortion legislation, and a constitutional amendment (set to be voted on statewide this November) mandating that only English could be spoken at official government meetings.

Democratic senators, normally able to stall and delay votes, were roughly shoved aside by the majority like a scrawny kid at the hands of a school-yard bully.

The experience scarred the Democratic Caucus. The Democrats entered this year with a bit of a chip on their shoulder and engaged in a kind of political passive aggressiveness. They slowed legislation down, dragged debates out and made life unpleasant for the majority.

Sensing that the chamber's culture was disintegrating, floor leader Charlie Shields (R-St. Joe) proposed to study the issue with the possibility of increasing the number of votes necessary to close debate. That offer lacked legs. But it did result in six young senators coming together: three Republicans and three Democrats, none of whom were facing imminent term limits and thus had an incentive to make the Senate more hospitable for the future.

The three Democratic senators promised that they wouldn't filibuster (or support other filibusters) except in situations of extreme personal conscience. (Democrats had filibustered the MOHELA sale earlier in the year; it was consequently PQed.) The three Republican senators pledged that they wouldn't vote for a PQ. Without those three Republican votes, the majority is one vote short of the necessary 18 votes to close debate.

This compromise was an unceremonious handshake agreement. But it's held so far. There haven't been any full-blown and the PQ has remained holstered.

Still these final days will test the temper and patience of both parties.

Legislation to require voters to show identification is working its way through the House and will surely be in front of the senators soon. Republicans are hungry for that piece of legislation. Same goes for both this year's anti-abortion bill and the House's more stringent immigration legislation.

Upping the stakes to pass these bills is the uncertainty surrounding the governor's race. This may be the last year for at least four years that Republicans will have a governor from their party, predisposed to sign their legislation.

Republicans have enough votes to pass these measures if they can just close debate. That'll be up to those three young Republican senators.

Dave Drebes runs Missouri Scout, a private news service covering state politics.