When a bill goes through the various steps on it’s way to passage (or failure), it has a variety of times it can be amended., SCR 01 is a Senate resolution “Requesting a Federal Waiver to Establish an Employer-sponsored Work Program”, aka a guest worker program. The bill passed through the Senate committee, the Senate and the House committee unamended, but when it got to the House floor the other day, Representative Chris Herrod moved (and got passed) an amendment to the bill. His amendment struck out language specifically authorizing “undocumented workers” to use this work program. The amended bill was then sent to the Senate for “concurrence”, meaning the House asked the Senate to agree to the amendment. The Senate refused, sending it back to the House and asking the House to recede from their amendment. The House refused to back away, so the Speaker of the House appointed 3 members of the body to “conference” with 3 members of the Senate and see if they can come to agreement. Those three House members are Representatives Dee, Herrod and Cosgrove. Two members from the House support the amendment, one supports the original bill, while in the Senate, there will be two members who support the original bill and one who supports the amended version. At least one person needs to be convinced to change their vote to get this bill to pass. A tie vote means it dies.
February 11, 2009 at 4:44 am
Only one thing happens in the conference committee as a result of the “meeting of the minds:” that is the creation of a conference committee REPORT.
The conference committee report will contain the determination of the committee (by majority). One determination is NOT to support the form of the bill as it comes to the committee. Another determination is to accept the bill as it came to the committee. However, the form that usually comes out of the Conference Committee is a comprimise, or, “reconstruction” of the point(s) in question.
The determination of the committee is then written into the REPORT, and then presented to the Senate and House separately for a vote to CONCUR. If both the Senate and the House “CONCUR with the conference committee,” the bill passes. If either house “refuses to CONCUR with the conference committee,” the bill is theoretically “dead” at that point; however, a number of other motions can be made at that point to keep the bill alive.
A bill is not completely finished unless, 1) it is signed/lapses into law OR 2) on the last night of the session, at midnight, the “enacting clause” is struck. Striking the enacting clause of a bill “kills” it.
This is generally speaking how the Conference system works. (There are variations.)
February 11, 2009 at 4:55 am
[...] HollyOntheHill writes ablog on the “Conference Committee” process. Link HERE. [...]
February 12, 2009 at 10:47 pm
[...] follow-up to the “conferencing” post of the other day and a follow-up explanation over on “Under the Dome“, [...]