Standing Committees of the National Conference of State Legislatures Overview

The NCSL Standing Committees are composed of legislators and legislative staff who are appointed by the leadership of the legislatures. The committees are the main organizational mechanism for serving NCSL members. There are 12 committees that deal with both state and state-federal issues. The jurisdictions of the standing committees are similar to those of committees in the state legislatures.  The standing committee websites are located on the State-Federal Relations and Standing Committees portal page.

The NCSL Standing Committees meet three times each year and allow legislators and staff to benefit from the experiences of other states in shaping public policy, experimenting with new laws, and managing the legislative institutions.  Committee members explore issues that states have to deal with, but committees do not recommend policy to the legislatures on issues that are internal to the states. Committees do develop policy on state-federal issues to guide NCSL's lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C.

NCSL's Washington staff lobby the Congress, the White House and federal agencies for the benefit of state legislatures in accord with the policies recommended by the Standing Committees and adopted at the NCSL Legislative Summit Business Meeting. As a result of those policy decisions voted on by the Standing Committees, NCSL is nationally recognized as a formidable lobbying force in state-federal relations.

Governing Structure

The committee structure, officers' responsibilities, policy process and rules of procedures are found in the Standing Committee Officers Manual. Each committee has a legislator chair, at least two legislator vice chairs, a legislative staff chair, at least two legislative staff vice chairs and immediate past chairs. The NCSL President appoints the legislator officers and the staff chair appoints the legislative staff officers. The overall committee structure consists of a legislator chair, a legislative staff chair, legislator vice chairs and legislative staff vice chairs. The legislator chair and the legislative staff chair are ex-officio members of the NCSL Executive Committee.

The presentations from the Standing Committee Officers' Orientation Webinar in September 2009 summarize the Standing Committee Structure and the Standing Committees' Rules and Procedures. Details are in the Standing Committee Officers' Manual.  The presentation narrated by Marti Harkness is a general introduction for officers and a good explanation of the standing committee structure.     

Meeting Schedule

The meeting schedule consists of one meeting in Washington, D.C., one meeting outside of Washington, D.C., and one meeting at the NCSL Legislative Summit. The Spring Forum is held in Washington, D.C. and the Fall Forum takes place outside of Washington, D.C.