HB 379 Summary

• Alabama adopts the Compact for a Balanced Budget, an interstate agreement to facilitate calling an Article V constitutional convention limited to proposing a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

• Establishes a Compact Commission with one member from each member state to coordinate the convention, encourage state participation, and oversee convention operations once Congress calls the convention upon receiving applications from two-thirds of states.

• Appoints Alabama's Governor, Speaker of the House, and President of the Senate as the state's three convention delegates, restricted to introducing, debating, and voting only on the Balanced Budget Amendment and the convention's procedural rules.

• Sets Dallas, Texas as the convention location (unless Congress specifies otherwise) and requires the Convention to permanently adjourn within 24 hours or upon completing its agenda, ensuring limited scope to the balanced budget amendment only.

• Terminates automatically when the Balanced Budget Amendment is ratified, or seven years after the first state adopts the compact, at which point Alabama's application for an Article V convention becomes a freestanding continuing resolution.