§ 1104. Commonwealth Legislature- Organization and Procedure
TITLE 1: GOVERNMENT DIVISION 1: LEGISLATIVE BRANCH § 1104. Commonwealth Legislature: Organization and Procedure. Each house of the legislature shall: (a) The House of Representatives shall convene at 10:00 a.m. and the Senate shall convene at 11:00 a.m. for organizational purposes on Saipan on the second Monday of January in the year following the regular general election at which members of the legislature are elected and shall be a continuous body for the two years between these organizational meetings. (b) Choose its presiding officer from among its members, establish the committees necessary for the conduct of its business, and promulgate rules of procedure. (c) Meet in regular sessions as provided by its rules of procedure. Each house may also be convened at other times by its presiding officer or by the Governor. When meeting pursuant to a call by the Governor, the legislature shall consider only those subjects described in the call. Source: N.M.I. Const. art. II, §§ 13, 14(b); PL 19-01 § 2 (June 16, 2015). Commission Comment: N.M.I. Const. art. II, § 13 was amended by 1985 Constitutional Amendment 8, which provides, in part, that “[e]ach house shall meet in regular sessions for no more than ninety days each year, sixty days before April 1 and thirty days after July 31 of each calendar year, and may be convened at other times for not more than ten consecutive days upon request by its presiding officer or by the governor.” PL 19-01 contained, in addition to savings and severability clauses, the following section: Section 1. Findings and Purpose. The Legislature finds that the duration of the inauguration session in which the House of Representatives and Senate conduct its first session for organizational purposes has steadily increased over the past several years. The organization session of the Nineteenth Legislature for both the House of Representatives and the Senate lasted more than three hours. The Legislature finds it necessary to amend 1 CMC § 1l04(a) which provides that the session for organizational purposes be conducted at 11:00 a.m. The purpose of this Act is to amend 1 CMC § 1104(a) to change the requirement that the organization session be conducted at 10:00 a.m. by the House and 11:00 a.m. by the Senate.
Source: CNMI Law Revision Commission