REQUEST FOR A CONFERENCE

The mere fact that each House may have separately passed its own bill on a subject is not sufficient to make either bill eligible for conference. One House must first take the additional step of amending and then passing the bill of the other House to form the basis for a conference.

If the amendments of the Senate are substantial or controversial, a Member, usually the chairman of the committee of jurisdiction, may request unanimous consent to take the House bill with the Senate amendments from the Speaker’s table, disagree to the amendments and request or agree to a conference with the Senate to resolve the disagreeing votes of the two Houses. In the case of a Senate bill with House amendments, the House may insist on the House amendments and request a conference. If there is objection, the Speaker may recognize a Member for a motion, if offered by the direction of the primary committee and of all reporting committees that had initial referral of the bill, to:

(1) disagree to the Senate amendments and ask for or agree to a conference

(2) insist on the House amendments to a Senate bill and request or agree to a conference.

This may also be accomplished by a motion to suspend the rules with a two-thirds vote or by a rule from the Committee on Rules. If there is no objection to the request, or if the motion is carried, a motion to instruct the managers of the conference would be in order. This initial motion to instruct is the prerogative of the minority party. The instructions to conferees usually urge the managers to accept or reject a particular Senate or House provision or to take a more generally described political position to the extent possible within the scope of the conference. However, such instructions may not contain argument and are not binding on House or Senate conferees.

After the motion to instruct is disposed of, the Speaker then appoints the managers, informally known as conferees, on the part of the House and a message is sent to the Senate advising it of the House action. A majority of the Members appointed to be conferees must have been supporters of the House position, as determined by the Speaker. The Speaker must appoint Members primarily responsible for the legislation and must include, to the fullest extent feasible, the principal proponents of the major provisions of the bill as it passed the House.

The Speaker usually follows the suggestion of the committee chairman in designating the conferees on the part of the House from among the members of the committee with jurisdiction over the House or Senate provisions. Occasionally, the Speaker appoints conferees from more than one committee and may specify the portions of the House and Senate versions to which they are assigned.

The number is fixed by the Speaker and majority party representation generally reflects the ratio for the full House committee, but may be greater on important bills. The Speaker also has the authority to name substitute conferees on specific provisions and add or remove conferees after his original appointment. Representation of both major parties is an important attribute of all our parliamentary procedures but, in the case of conference committees, it is important that the views of the House on matters in conference be properly represented.

If the Senate agrees to the request for a conference, a similar committee is appointed by unanimous consent by the Presiding Officer of the Senate. Both political parties may be represented on the Senate conference committee. The Senate and House committees need not be the same size but each House has one vote in conference as determined by a majority within each set or subset of conferees. The request for a conference may only be made by the body in possession of the official papers. Occasionally, the Senate, anticipating that the House will not concur in its amendments, votes to insist on its amendments and requests a conference on passage of the bill prior to returning the bill to the House. This practice serves to expedite the matter because time may be saved by the designation of the Senate conferees before returning the bill to the House.

The matter of which body requests the conference is not without significance because the body asking for the conference normally acts last on the report to be submitted by the conferees and a motion to recommit the conference report is not available to the body that acts last.

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