§11. Extraordinary session; petition of legislature; call; limitations

A. The legislature shall be convened in extraordinary session by the presiding officers of both houses upon written petition of a majority of the elected members of each house.

B. The petition of members of the legislature to the presiding officers to call the legislature into extraordinary session shall specify the object or objects of the session, the date and time at which the session shall convene, and the number of days for which the session shall be convened; provided such number of days shall not exceed thirty calendar days. The petition shall also provide a designated place for the signature of any member who is in favor of the calling of said extraordinary session and it may specify the particular time the session shall adjourn. Such petition shall be in the following form:

PETITION

STATE CAPITOL

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

(DATE)

We, the undersigned members of the Legislature constituting a majority of the elected members of the House of Representatives and the Senate thereof, in accordance with the provisions set forth in Article III, Section 2(B) of the Constitution of Louisiana, do hereby petition the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate to call the Legislature into extraordinary session at the State Capitol in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, commencing at ________ o'clock ___.m. on __________________, in the year of our Lord _______, for a period not to exceed ____ days, after transmittal to you of copies of this petition as signed by at least a majority of the elected members of each house of the Legislature.

Said session shall be convened to consider the following enumerated object(s):

1.

(Signed) _______________________________

C. The petition may be circulated, and transmitted to the presiding officers by the members themselves, or, alternatively, the petition may be circulated and transmitted to the presiding officers as provided in Subsection D.

D. When at least thirteen senators and thirty-five members of the house of representatives determine the necessity for an extraordinary session of the legislature they may prepare a petition to call the legislature into extraordinary session and submit it to the chief clerical officers of both houses who shall make adequate public announcement of its receipt. Such petition shall be in the form specified in Subsection B of this section.

Within forty-eight hours of the receipt by the presiding officers of such a petition duly signed by at least thirteen senators and thirty-five members of the house of representatives, the clerk of the house and the secretary of the senate shall prepare duplicate copies of the petition and shall transmit such a copy by certified or registered mail to each member of their respective houses for the purpose of obtaining the requisite number of signatures required to call the legislature into extraordinary session. The copies of the petition mailed to all members of the legislature shall be postmarked on the same day. Each duplicate copy of the petition shall contain the name of the legislator to whom it is mailed.

Each member who is in favor of the call for said extraordinary session shall sign the copy of the petition mailed to him and shall return it to the respective clerical officer no later than twenty days after the date on which the petition was mailed to the members or, if the date of the session as stated in the petition is earlier than twenty-seven days after the date that copies were mailed, no later than seven days before the date of such session as stated therein. No petition received by a clerical officer after five o'clock p.m. on the twentieth day after the copies were mailed or on the seventh day before the date of the session, whichever is the earlier, shall be counted and the clerical officer shall return it to the member. Any member who has signed and timely returned a copy of a petition may remove his signature from a petition or reclaim the copy he has signed by written notice to the respective clerical officer at any time prior to receipt by the chief clerical officers of signed copies from a majority of the elected members of each house. No signature so removed or copies of a petition so reclaimed shall be counted.

On the day after the final date for return of signed copies of the petition or as soon as a majority of the elected members of each house have timely returned signed copies, if earlier, each of the clerical officers shall separately list the names of the members who have returned signed copies of the petition to him and shall also list the names of those members whose copies of the petition were invalid because they were not signed by the member or because they were not timely received. Each clerical officer shall sign the list of members he has so prepared and shall cause a copy of the petition and a copy of the list to be transmitted to the presiding officers and to each member of the legislature. All costs in connection with preparation, transmittal, handling and tabulation of petitions and lists of members returning same shall be paid from funds appropriated for the expenses of the two houses.

If a majority of the elected members of each house sign and timely return the petition the extraordinary session shall be held. If a majority of the elected members of each house do not sign and timely return the petition, the chief clerical officers shall return the signed copies of the petition to the members who signed and returned them.

E. At least five days prior to the date for the convening of an extraordinary session as contained in a petition for such a session duly signed by a majority of the elected members of each house and transmitted to the presiding officers thereof, the presiding officers shall issue a proclamation calling the extraordinary session, which proclamation shall state the objects of the session, the date and time at which the session shall convene, the number of days for which it is convened, all as provided in the petition signed by the requisite number of members, and the time the session shall adjourn if included in the petition. The power to legislate shall be limited, under penalty of nullity, to the objects specifically enumerated in the proclamation.

F. The petition for an extraordinary session called upon petition of a majority of the elected members of each house and a list of members signing said petition or copies thereof shall be entered in the journal of said session.

G. When either the governor or the legislature has called an extraordinary session of the legislature, neither the governor nor the legislature shall call another extraordinary session to overlap or run concurrently with the first extraordinary session.

Added by Acts 1975, 1st Ex.Sess., No. 50, §1.