United States congressional conference committee

A conference committee is a committee of the United States Congress appointed by the House of Representatives and Senate to resolve disagreements on a particular bill. A conference committee is usually composed of senior Members of the standing committees of each House that originally considered the legislation.

Conference committees operate after the House and the Senate have passed different versions of a bill. Conference committees exist to draft a compromise bill that both houses can accept. Both houses of Congress must eventually pass identical legislation for the bill to be presented to the President. (See U.S. Const., art I, sec. 7.) The two houses can reach that point through the process of amendments between Houses, where the House passes the Senate bill with a House amendment, or vice versa, but this process can be cumbersome. Thus, some bills pass both Houses through the use of a conference committee. (See Sen. Procedure, 449.)

After one house passes a bill, the second house often passes the same bill, with an amendment representing the second house's work product. The second house then sends a message to the first house, asking the first house to concur with the second house's amendment. If the first house does not like the second house's amendment, then the first house can disagree with the amendment of the second house, request a conference, appoint conferees, and send a message to that effect to the second house. The second house then insists on its amendment, agrees to a conference, and appoints conferees.

Each house determines the number of conferees from its house. The number of conferees need not be equal. To conclude its business, a majority of both House and Senate delegations to the conference must indicate their approval by signing the conference report.

The authority to appoint conferees lies in the entire House, and the entire Senate can appoint conferees by adopting a debatable motion to do so. (See Cong. Rec., 18 June 1968, 17,618–24; Sen. Procedure, 455.) But leadership have increasingly exercised authority in the appointment of conferees.

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