How the Congressional Conference Committee Works: QuickTake Q&A

(Bloomberg) -- Sometimes, the U.S. Congress needs matchmakers for two to become one. The House of Representatives passed a tax bill on Nov. 16. The Senate passed a different one on Dec. 2. For tax cuts to become law, both the House and Senate need to approve the same bill. The tricky job of marrying the two falls, officially at least, to the members of a conference committee, which meets today.

1. What’s a conference committee?

It’s a temporary panel of lawmakers from the House and Senate formed to reconcile the differences in the legislation passed by each chamber and negotiate one bill that, they hope, will be acceptable to both.

2. How are the members chosen?

The Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate choose lawmakers who helped shape the bill. Each chamber decides on its own how many people to put on the committee, and often picks an odd number, to avoid ties. The tax-cut conference committee has nine Republicans and five Democrats from the House, and eight Republicans and seven Democrats from the Senate.

3. Who is on the conference committee?

Republican Speaker Paul Ryan chose the conference committee’s chairman, Kevin Brady of Texas, plus Peter Roskam and John Shimkus of Illinois, Devin Nunes of California, Diane Black of Tennessee, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Rob Bishop of Utah, Don Young of Alaska and Fred Upton of Michigan. House Democratic leader Nancy Peloi chose Richard Neal of Massachusetts, Sander Levin of Michigan, Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Raul Grijalva of Arizona and Kathy Castor of Florida. In the Senate, Republican leader Mitch McConnell assigned Orrin Hatch of Utah, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John Cornyn of Texas, John Thune of South Dakota, Rob Portman of Ohio, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Democratic leader Chuck Schumer named Ron Wyden of Oregon, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Tom Carper of Delaware.

4. What rules guide the committee’s works?

Members are not allowed to change the parts of the two bills that are the same. On the differences, ideally they’re supposed to limit the scope of compromise to the two versions in front of them. So if the House voted to pay out $1 billion for some purpose, and the Senate voted $2 billion for it, they could choose either of those amounts, or something in between, but not, say, nothing or $3 billion.

5. So they can’t completely rewrite the bill?

Not normally. But things get complicated when one chamber has proposed a change in a law that wasn’t included in the other chamber’s bill. In weighing the new proposal against existing laws, committee members sometimes compromise on a third way. Both the House and Senate have rules against introducing conference measures that are "entirely irrelevant." In practice, committee members have a pretty good idea of what their leadership and fellow representatives will swallow and what’s needed to forge a compromise that can be agreed to in both chambers. The House and Senate have procedures that allow conferees latitude in reaching agreements. This includes adding material not in the original legislation.

6. How free are members to exert their own views?

Each chamber can instruct its delegates to the conference committee on what type of agreement to seek. But the conferees aren’t bound to follow the instructions.

7. Can I watch the conference committee work?

Though meetings are supposed to be open to the public, conference committees in recent years have held one public meeting and then gone closed doors to do the hard bargaining. Today’s public meeting, at 2 p.m., is at least partly for show, as Republican leaders keep working behind the scenes to narrow differences in the two bills.

8. What happens after they reach an accord?

A conference report is written along with a description of how each disagreement was resolved. Two copies of the report are signed by majorities of the House and Senate committees, and one copy each is sent to the House and Senate. The chamber that first requested the conference is the first to decide how to act. The first chamber to consider it can decide to send it back to the committee for further work. But once the first chamber agrees to accept the report as written, the second can only accept or reject the report. Once there’s an approved report, the House requires three working days to consider it before voting and the Senate requires 48 hours, though these waiting periods can be waived. 

9. Can the bill be changed before the full House or Senate vote?

No. The bill will be subject to a straight yes-or-no vote in each chamber.

The Reference Shelf

• A Congressional Research Service report on how to resolve legislative differences.
• Bloomberg news on the biggest sticking points between the House and Senate tax bills.
• A Bloomberg QuickTake Q&A primer on the tax-cut debate.
• Bloomberg QuickTakes on the estate tax, profit shifting and the budget deficit.

--With assistance from Katherine Rizzo

To contact the reporter on this story: Anne Cronin in New York at acronin14@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurence Arnold

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