Legislatures under a single ruling party are expected to scrutinize executive-drafted bills. In this study, we show that ruling parties can find lawmakers who are capable and trusted among senior officials transferred to the legislature as their executive careers end, a group usually regarded as politically finished. These career-capped elites have the expertise and rank to challenge ministries, and their closing careers lower the cost of disagreement. With original data on China's national legislature (2003--2022), we find that each additional career-capped elite on a reviewing committee is associated with 12 percent more amendments, with larger and more precise associations for adopted amendments and for changes to substantive policy issues. Instrumental-variable estimates that exploit age-based retirement rules yield similar results. These findings indicate that career endings can become a resource for legislative scrutiny.