3.22 Staff for Legislative Standing Committees

Includes legislative council or service agency or central management agency.

Includes chamber management agency, office of clerk or secretary and House or Senate research office.

Senate – there is secretarial staff for both majority and minority offices for the Senate in the Capitol. Most of the clerical work is done by caucus staff. House – the clerical and secretarial staff for the House is more centralized and is supervised by the Clerk of the House.

Professional staff and clerical support is provided via the Legislative Services Office, a non-partisan office serving all members of the House and Senate on a year-round basis. There are currently 65 employees working in the Legislative Services Office. Leadership in each party hire their respective support staff.

Leadership in each party hire their respective support staff.

The Senate secretary and House clerk maintain supervision of committee clerks.

Senators and House chairpersons select their secretaries and notify the central administrative services agency; all administrative employee matters handled by the agency.

Leadership employs partisan staff to provide professional and clerical services. However, all members, including leadership, are also served by the centralized, non-partisan staff.

House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees have Legislative Fiscal Office staff at their hearings.

Staff are assigned to each committee but work under the direction of the chair.

These responses apply only to joint standing committees. Standing committees of jurisdiction are joint standing committees established by joint rule and consist of 3 Senators, 10 members of the House of Representatives and in some cases a tribal representative appointed by the House. The number and jurisdiction of the joint standing committees may vary in each biennium.

The clerical support comes from employees who are hired to work only during the legislative sessions. They are employees of either the House or the Senate, and are not part of the central agency.

Committees are joint Senate and House. Professional nonpartisan staff serves committees, individual legislators and legislature as a whole, regardless of chamber or party.

Member’s personal secretary serves as a clerk to the committee or subcommittee that the member chairs.

Standing committees are staffed by subject specialist from the Joint Legislative Council Staff

In general, the legislative service agency provides legal and staff assistance for legislative meetings and provides associated materials. Individual legislators hire personal or committee staff as their budgets provide and at their own discretion.