COMMITTEE ON RULES -

How Congress Works

Resolving Differences with the Senate

Committees of Conference and Consideration of Conference Reports

The U.S. Constitution requires that in order for a bill to be presented to the President for signature, it must pass both the House and Senate in the exact same form. The device used for reaching agreement between the two Houses is often, but not always, a conference committee. Sometimes differences between the two bodies are resolved by amendment -- i.e., the House will agree to the bill as passed by the Senate with an amendment and the Senate will subsequently concur with that amendment. A bill may be sent to conference by unanimous consent or, if objection is heard, by motion or suspension of the rules. Clause 1 of rule XXII provides that a motion to request or agree to a conference with the Senate is in order if the motion is made by direction of the committee with jurisdiction over the legislation. If such a motion has not been authorized by the committee, a special rule may be required to go to conference. Therefore, it is in the committee’s interest to conclude committee mark-ups with a motion to authorize the Chairman in advance to take all steps necessary to proceed to conference when that stage of the process is eventually reached. Following the motion to go to conference, but prior to the appointment of conferees, the Speaker will recognize the Minority Floor manager, if recognition is sought, to offer a motion to instruct House conferees. The motion is debatable for one hour, divided between the Majority and the Minority managers. If both support the motion, however, a third Member may demand time in opposition. All three Members are then recognized for one-third of the time. The motion to instruct conferees is unamendable unless the previous question is defeated. The instructions are not binding and they may not propose to do what the conferees could not otherwise do under the rules of the House (e.g., exceed the scope of the conference). Additional opportunities to instruct occur after 20 days if the conference has failed to report, and when a conference report is recommitted. The Member who wishes to offer a motion to instruct conferees after 20 days must notify the House one day in advance of offering the motion. Conferees are named by the Speaker and usually represent the committee(s) of jurisdiction and principal proponents of the legislation’s major provisions. When a conference agreement is reached, it comes back to the House in the form of a "conference report" which the House must consider and approve. Unless the requirement is waived, House rules require that a conference report be filed at least three calendar days (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays) before it can be called up for consideration. After that time, it becomes privileged and can be called up at any time without a special rule from the Rules Committee. However, if a conference report is in violation of a rule of the House or some extraordinary procedure for consideration of the conference report is desired, the Rules Committee may report a special rule waiving points of order against its consideration. Recently, this has been the usual case for conference reports on appropriation and other major pieces of legislation. Debate on a conference report takes up to one hour, the time divided between the Majority and the Minority, unless the Majority party manager and the Minority party manager both support the conference report. In that case, one-third of the debate time will be given to an opponent of the conference report who makes such a demand. Before adoption of the conference report, a motion may be in order to recommit the conference report to the committee on conference, either with or without instructions. The instructions must be within the authority of the conferees and must comply with the rules of the Senate. In addition, no separate debate time is allowed on the motion to recommit. Such a motion is only in order if the Senate has not yet acted on the conference report thereby discharging the conferees, and the instructions in the motion to recommit are not binding because the House cannot bind Senate conferees. A Member qualifies to offer the motion if he or she opposes the bill and states that fact. If the House is first to act and the motion to recommit is adopted, the conference must meet again. A new conference report must be filed prior to consideration of the measure again. The House may not immediately reconsider the conference report. Following debate on the conference report and in the absence of a motion to recommit or upon the defeat of such a motion, a vote then occurs on adoption of the conference report. (It is important to remember that a conference report may not be amended on the House floor).

Members should also be aware that when dealing with appropriations conference reports, there may be times when conferees cannot reach agreement on all the amendments in disagreement or there may be times when conferees report provisions outside the conference report (i.e., they exceed the scope of the conference or they violate clause 2 of Rule XXI -- legislating on an appropriation bill or appropriating unauthorized funds). In those cases, the conferees will present a conference report to the House and Senate that includes all amendments on which agreement has been reached but excludes the amendments that remain in real or technical disagreement. The conference report is considered first and then, assuming adoption of the conference report, the amendments in disagreement are considered and disposed of individually.