Standing Committee Rules and Procedures

The NCSL Standing Committees develop the official policy statements that determine NCSL positions on the wide range of federal actions that affect the states and to guide NCSL's lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C.  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. 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 Annual Business Meeting. For information on these policies and NCSL's lobbying activities, see each standing committees' portal page. The policies are available on the web pages for each committee and under the "Policy Positions" heading above.

The NCSL policy process is governed by the NCSL Bylaws and NCSL Permanent Rules of Procedure. The 2010 Committee Officers Webinar, which includes the PowerPoint presentation, explains the NCSL policy process and the rules that govern it.  See a summary of NCSL's Rules of Procedures. 

Most proposed policy statements originate in one or more of the standing committees and must be approved at either the fall or spring business meeting and the annual business meeting to become the official position of NCSL. Committees are expected to follow appropriate committee procedure as dictated by the NCSL rules of procedure. NCSL rules specify Mason’s Manual of Parliamentary Procedure as the back-up on matters of parliamentary procedure. Once approved by a full committee, policy resolutions are considered by the Steering Committee, which performs the function played by rules or calendar committees in some legislatures. After a policy resolution passes through the Steering Committee, it moves to the fall or spring business meeting.

NCSL has a sunset provision for policy resolutions. All policy positions automatically terminate three years after the Annual Business Meeting at which they are adopted unless they are reaffirmed in the normal process. Action calendar resolutions last only to the next Annual Business Meeting after they are adopted.