Arizona Legislature changes request to speak system

The system allowing members, lobbyists and the general public to request to speak at a House or Senate committee meeting will be changing in 2014. The improvements will make it possible for committee chairs to re-arrange agendas on the fly and make it easier for users to speak on bills being heard in separate committees with overlapping meeting times.

The three main changes to the Request To Speak (In Committee) System are:
• Committee chairs will be able to easily re-arrange the order of agendas
• Users will be able to access re-ordered agendas via smartphones and other devices
• Agenda items voted on during committee will be updated in real-time

Committee chairs will be allowed to rearrange an agenda to suit a meeting’s immediate circumstances with the new RTS system. And as agenda items are heard, that information will be updated in real-time allowing users to follow the committee as it works through each item on the agenda. Consequently, users who have bills being considered in two or more committees that are meeting at the same time, can better gauge which committee to be at first and when to leave it for the next one.