Conference Committees

When the House and Senate pass different versions of the same bill, one way to reconcile them is a conference committee. Each chamber appoints conferees, usually senior members of the committees that wrote the bill, and they negotiate a compromise. The result is a conference report, which each chamber must then approve without amendment in a single up-or-down vote. Conferees are supposed to stay within the scope of the differences between the two versions, though they have often added new provisions.

For much of the twentieth century, conference committees handled most major legislation and were so powerful that observers called them the third house of Congress. Their closed-door negotiations among a small group of senior members decided the final shape of tax laws, appropriations, and farm bills. Reforms in the 1970s opened most conference meetings to the public, though the real bargaining often moved to private sessions.

Formal conferences have become rare. In the 1990s Congress convened dozens per Congress, but recent Congresses have used only a handful, relying instead on amendment exchanges between the chambers, sometimes called ping-pong, or on informal negotiations among leaders who then pass a final text in each chamber. The Senate's need to clear several motions to go to conference, each of which can be filibustered, is one reason. The decline has concentrated power over final legislation in party leaders.