Who’s best at 3 a.m.? Not the Massachusetts Legislature.

Shortly after 8:30 a.m. Thursday, as the Senate prepared to vote on a major housing bond bill, Republican Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr took the floor. Members, he said, had received the $5.16 billion bill after pulling all-nighters, with no time to review it, hours after formal legislative sessions were supposed to have concluded at midnight. “We cannot accept this,” Tarr said. “It cannot become normal. It cannot be institutionalized. Members deserve better than that. The citizens of the Commonwealth deserve better than that.”

Tarr is right. A legislative process that begins with months of inaction and ends in a flurry of legislation overnight — where important laws are left on the shelf simply because time is running out — does not benefit members or the public.

To its credit, the Legislature completed one of its most important tasks this session. Lawmakers reached agreement on a housing bond bill that will invest in building all types of housing the state desperately needs to address skyrocketing prices, the homelessness crisis, and a cost of living that threatens to drive businesses out of the state. The bill will provide money for affordable housing, public housing, mixed-income housing, market-rate housing, and the conversion of commercial properties to residential, among other initiatives. It will allow accessory dwelling units to be built without special permits everywhere in Massachusetts.

While the housing bill was a top priority for Gov. Maura Healey (who introduced her version last fall, giving the Legislature plenty of time), there were real differences between the versions passed by the House and Senate, and its passage was not assured until a compromise was reached early Thursday.

Lawmakers also passed a bill that increases access to veterans benefits. They sent to Healey a bill, which this board supported, that modernizes parentage laws in cases where a father uses assisted reproduction or surrogacy and has no genetic link to his child. They also sent to Healey a bill that phases out PFAS chemicals in firefighting equipment.

But lawmakers failed to pass major bills related to health care, economic development and the environment.

On health care, both the House and Senate passed complex bills aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs, ensuring better oversight of for-profit health care companies, and improving long-term care facilities. But while the issues had been debated for months, the House only passed its version of a prescription drug bill in July, and the Senate waited until July to pass its version of bills on long-term care and market oversight. Lawmakers were simultaneously considering bills related to substance use and maternal health, which presumably required the expertise of lawmakers on the health care committees.

House Speaker Ron Mariano said health care negotiators were trying to consider the hospital oversight and prescription drug bills together, and it simply became too difficult at the last minute. “I’d rather have a good bill than bills with errors and mistakes,” Mariano told reporters.

The economic development bill — a $3.4 billion bill in the House and a $2.86 billion bill in the Senate, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation — also failed. Those bills included major investments in climate technology and life sciences. They were also loaded with policy priorities, many of which differed between the House and Senate, from allowing happy hour to advancing a proposed soccer stadium in Everett.

Legislation related to the siting of energy projects also failed, despite agreement on core parts of the bill; the Globe reported that key negotiators blamed the collapse on differences related to natural gas use policy.

In recent days, the House and Senate have passed a series of last-minute bills on issues as diverse as Boston property taxes, animal rights and safe injection sites. But as Mariano himself said (a line echoed to him by Senate President Karen Spilka), passing a bill at the last minute “tells me that they’re not serious about passing the bill.”

To be sure, there’s nothing like a deadline to motivate action. Key lawmakers defended the flurry of last-minute legislation as the way Beacon Hill has always done business. Rep. Paul Donato, a Medford Democrat and a representative for 23 years, said lawmakers who serve on conference committees “have to stay here as long as we can until we realize we can’t do anything else.” Mariano said all-night sessions are “the nature of the business we’re in.” Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Michael Rodrigues said there’s less late-night work today than there was 20 or 30 years ago, when “it was work around the clock all the time.”

Caffeine-fueled frivolity powered lawmakers throughout the night. Rep. Brian Ashe, D-Longmeadow, said he would offer a quote, then snored loudly. Outgoing Rep. Smitty Pignatelli, D-Lenox, said he was “honored that in my last formal session my colleagues did not want me to leave.”

But on a more serious note, Pignatelli said it was “frustrating” and “disappointing” that lawmakers failed to agree on the economic development bill. “Bond bills give everyone in the Commonwealth opportunities to get some money and put it to work,” Pignatelli said. Ashe added: “If we’re staying this late, sometimes you can expect that. What we’re hoping for is to get the results.”

Buying coffee in the State House cafeteria, Rep. Rodney Elliott, D-Lowell, said it was “disappointing,” given the urgency of climate change, that lawmakers failed to pass an energy bill.

The Legislature will meet in informal sessions through the end of the year, so there will be opportunities to pass more bills, and lawmakers can and should keep working. Both Spilka and Mariano said they would do so. But the objection of a single lawmaker can derail a bill in informal sessions, and bonding bills, like the economic development bill, can only be passed in formal sessions, as they require approval by a two-thirds majority of members in a roll call vote.

Legislative leaders found time to approve hundreds of thousands of dollars in state budget items that benefit their districts, the Globe reported. Democratic senators found time to hold a fundraiser at 9:30 a.m. on July 31, according to State House News Service. It’s a shame they couldn’t find time to pass vital legislation that affects the health, environment and economic prosperity of the people of Massachusetts.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.