Overview: Standing Committees of the National Conference of State Legislatures

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 10 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 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 directives and resolutions 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 directives and resolutions 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 legislator co-chairs, at least two legislator vice chairs, legislative staff co-chairs, and at least two legislative staff vice chairs. The NCSL President and President-elect appoint the legislator officers and the staff chair appoints the legislative staff officers. The overall committee structure consists of legislator co-chairs, legislative staff co-chairs, legislator vice chairs and legislative staff vice chairs. The legislator co-chairs and the legislative staff co-chairs are ex-officio members of the NCSL Executive Committee.

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.

NCSL 2012 Fall Forum
Washington, D.C.
Dec. 5-7, 2012

NCSL 2013 Spring Forum
Denver, Colorado
May 2-4, 2013

NCSL 2013 Legislative Summit
Atlanta, Georgia
August 12-15, 2013