I always question what "last minute" really means in these stories. Usually, when i go and look up the legislative calendar, the committee was scheduled to meet

I always question what "last minute" really means in these stories. Usually, when i go and look up the legislative calendar, the committee was scheduled to meet and do mark up of that bill, well in advance. So it usually not "last minute" in that sense, only in the sense that "it happened before the vote". There have been cases where the committee meeting/etc was scheduled last minute, but that's super-rare (and not allowed in a lot of legislatures, actually). Here, i believe it was scheduled a week ahead of time, from the data i can find.