Today’s post is on types of legislative committees.

https://soundcloud.com/capimpactca/types-of-legislative-committees

In both the California State Assembly as well as the California State Senate, there are several types of committees that operate to conduct the business of the two houses of the California Legislature.

Committee information is available online for the Assembly at assembly.ca.gov, and for Senate at senate.ca.gov. These websites include the committee members, the staff, the address, the phone number, when and where they meet, their policy committee jurisdictions, etc.

In terms of the standing committees, there are 32 in the Assembly and 21 in the Senate. These committees are created pursuant to the Assembly Rules for Assembly committees – obviously – and the Senate Rules for the Senate committees.

The standing committees consider legislation, the state budget, internal legislative matters, and all of these are determined by the jurisdictions that’s set forth in those rules. Again, the two rules committees, the Assembly Rules Committee and the Senate Rules Committee, determines the jurisdictions and the composition of those committees.

The standing committees have to meet specific standards for providing notice, bill analyses, the quorums, the method of voting, etc. Note that both the Assembly and the Senate have select committees, which are technically subcommittees of each house’s respective general research committee.

Now, pursuant to two joint rules, that’s 36.5 and 36.7, there are a number of joint committees of the Legislature. Note that joint committees have membership from both houses and consider issues of joint concern. A number of these committees were actually established pursuant to state statute or resolution that were adopted by the two houses.