The interim is a vital part of the legislative process, a time when legislators and legislative staff might be hard at work on all kinds of legislative business. NCSL’s Glossary of Legislative Terms defines “interim” as the “interval between regular sessions of the legislature,” but the true nature of these periods is far more complex. To better understand the time demands on legislators and legislative staff, NCSL studied the number and type of meetings that occurred during the most recently completed interim in 2023.
Before understanding how interims can vary, it is important to first understand regular sessions. NCSL has grouped the 50 state legislatures into three major categories, as shown in the map below: full time (green); part time (gold); and hybrid (gray).
Typically, full-time legislatures are in session for most of the year and do not have a lengthy—or even any—interval between regular sessions, though they may schedule recesses or breaks. However, for hybrid and part-time legislatures, the interim plays a role in policymaking and legislative operations. It might be used for committee meetings, wrapping up from the prior session, conducting longer-term research, preparing for the upcoming session, conducting district work or campaigning. The amount of time spent in interim varies by legislature, but all hybrid and part-time legislatures spend at least some time working during the interim.
Types of Interim Committees
Session length also affects the amount of time a legislature has for interim work. Special sessions, when they are called, may also play a role. The type of work and how it’s carried out depends on how an interim is structured. There are three main ways legislatures hold meetings during the interim:
- Standing committees.
- Interim committees.
- Task forces or commissions.
Standing committees do business during the regular legislative session. During session, committees learn about and debate bills, hear public testimony, consider amendments to bills, and vote on whether to pass bills out of committee. In some states, standing committees continue to meet throughout the interim, during which time they may conduct research, prepare bills for the next session and/or receive testimony. In Florida, for example, the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice meets during the legislative session and the interim and is empowered to do so by the chamber rules. During the interim, committees are no longer focused on considering and acting on legislation but instead hear presentations or reports, or prepare legislation for the upcoming regular session.
Interim committees are established with the specific purpose of meeting between regular sessions. These committees can operate as interim versions of existing standing committees. For example, in Utah, the work done by the House Health and Human Services Committee continues in the interim by the Health and Human Services Interim Committee. In Indiana, the Legislature created an Interim Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. These committees are authorized to operate only during the interim; once the interim is over, they are either dissolved or paused.Interim legislative task forces and commissions, which are categorized together here, are often established with a specific goal or policy area in mind and may have nonlegislative members, including members of the community or experts in a particular field. For example, the Rhode Island General Assembly has formed study commissions to tackle issues including reducing the incarceration of women, handling shoreline access and tackling housing affordability. In practice, study commissions can cover a wide variety of topics depending on the needs of the legislature. Rhode Island and Vermont both conduct the bulk of their interim work through specially established study commissions and task forces. Their duties often involve conducting research on their respective policy areas, holding hearings where experts and members of the public can provide testimony and proposing policy solutions.
Format of Interim Meetings
The structure of a legislature’s interim meetings can vary. For example, Missouri’s interim mostly features a small number of House and joint committees. The Senate committees do not have a set interim schedule and meet more sporadically. In other states, all interim committees meet jointly, with members from both chambers. Maine, Connecticut and Massachusetts all have joint standing committees during session, which then continue into the interim. By contrast, Arizona’s interim includes standing committees, interim-only committees and task forces and commissions that may meet by chamber or jointly.
Just as regular sessions vary in length, so do interims. An interim can be long or short, with meetings highly concentrated or spread out over the duration. Of the 29 legislatures NCSL examined, the number of days spent in meetings during the interim ranged from 17 to 136 days. This difference does not mean one legislature or chamber is more effective than another or that one legislature works harder than another. Instead, it is a reminder of the unique nature of every legislature. As the saying goes, if you’ve seen one legislature, you’ve seen one legislature!
Fast Facts From the Study
To better understand what the interval between legislative sessions looks like, NCSL built upon prior research and examined the 2023 interim of 29 part-time or hybrid legislatures. Here are four takeaways:
- Of the 29 states and territories examined, 23 (79.3%) were categorized as hybrid and six (20.7%) were part-time lite.
- On average, hybrid legislatures met 57 days and held 116 meetings in the interim.
- The six part-time-lite legislatures all met at least 25 days during the interim. Four of the six conducted more than 70 meetings.
- All 29 legislatures had at least 10 committees, commissions or task forces that met during the interim—most legislatures had more than 20.
Tobin Lindstrom was an intern in NCSL’s Center for Legislative Strengthening. For more information, please contact CLS.