If you’re sold on the fact that the “emergency” gathering at the Capitol in Salem is something other than a test drive of annual legislative sessions, then we have some swamp land we’d like to sell you. We should be past that guise by now.

Monday’s not-so-rousing opening day of the special session is a stage setter for annual gatherings by lawmakers. Instead of testing the waters, so to speak, we think lawmakers should have first sold the idea to voters if they felt the need to meet every year. Instead, they declared an emergency and are now off and running in Salem. (Although in Monday’s case, the Senate was running out the door after 30 minutes; the House was running in partisan circles after spending the morning bickering over rules that limit the minority party’s parliamentary options.)

Neither chamber can take action until bills are introduced and referred to committees, which should have started by the time you read this. Lawmakers hope to complete work on budget changes and policy issues by Feb. 29.

The so-called emergency session has the look and feel of a regular session. Some of the “emergency issues” lawmakers will discuss include:

• Allocating $1.6 million toward restructuring the loan debt owed by the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry.

• More money for the state Department of Human Services for services for seniors, persons with disabilities and children.

• Some $350,000 for the Big Look committee that would continue reviewing Oregon’s land-use laws, plus $4.4 million for processing claims under the Measure 49 land-use proposal that voters approved in November.

Lawmakers are promising more work will get done after Friday, when state economists issue their forecast. But they’ve added a caveat: things are a bit cloudy because of the uncertainty of the economy, which is most likely “softening or going into a decline.” (How many times have we heard that heading into a presidential election season?)

At any rate, we’re guessing three months from now the “emergency” session will be deemed a great success and voters will be sold on the idea that Oregon can’t survive without annual sessions.