Going to Conference in the Senate

^Pr^ep^ar^{ed f}^o^r^M^e^m^b^ers^an^d^Com^mⁱ^t^t^ees^of^C^ong^r^e^ss

There are three steps that the Senate must take, and one more step that it may take, in arranging to
send a bill to conference. These steps rarely are contentious but they have the potential to become
time-consuming. This report discusses these steps and how they are taken on the Senate floor.

Introduc tion ............................................................................................................................... 1
The Four Steps in Going to Conference....................................................................................1
Taking These Steps on the Senate Floor....................................................................................2
Author Contact Information............................................................................................................3

There are as many as four actions that the Senate may take on the floor in the process of sending a ¹
bill to a conference committee. Three of these actions are required; the fourth is not. The Senate
typically completes these stages of the legislative process quickly and routinely, most often by
unanimous consent. Singly or collectively, however, the four actions can require considerable
time to complete if Senators choose to exercise their rights to debate one or more of them at
length. At the extreme, Senators can engage in one or several filibusters that can delay or even ²
stall further action on a bill that a majority of the Senate wishes to send to conference.
Before a conference committee can convene, the two houses must complete the same three
actions. These actions take somewhat different forms in each house, depending on the actions that
the other house already has taken.
First, the Senate and House must agree to disagree. They must reach the stage of disagreement,
which marks the point at which each house has disagreed formally to the legislative proposal of
the other. The Senate takes this first action either by insisting on its own amendment(s) to a
House-passed bill (or amendment) or by disagreeing to the House’s amendment(s) to a Senate-
passed bill (or amendment).
Second, the two houses must agree that they want to create a conference committee in order to
resolve the legislative disagreement that they have just acknowledged formally. The Senate takes
this second step either by requesting a conference with the House or by agreeing to a request for a
conference that the House already has made.
Third, each house must appoint its members of the conference committee. The Speaker appoints
House conferees. The Senate can elect its conferees, although it almost always authorizes its
presiding officer to appoint the conferees. The Senate must take formal action on the floor to ³
grant this authority to the presiding officer before he or she can appoint the Senate’s conferees.
These are the three actions that each house must take. In addition, there is an opportunity for each
house to instruct its conferees immediately before they are formally appointed. By simple
majority vote, each house can instruct its conferees to take a certain position in conference, so
long as the conferees would not violate their authority if they agreed to that position. However,
instructions to conferees are not binding. No Representative or Senator can make a point of order

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against a conference report on the ground that it is inconsistent with instructions that the House or
Senate gave its conferees.
In the House, one valid motion to instruct can be made after the House agrees to go to conference ⁴
but before the Speaker names the House’s conferees. Similarly, a Senator can move to instruct
Senate conferees after the Senate takes all three required actions but before the presiding officer
announces the list of Senate conferees. In the Senate, there is no limit on the number of motions
to instruct that Senators can make. Any motion to instruct, and the instructions in the motion,
must be read before the Senate begins to debate it, unless the Senate agrees by unanimous consent
to dispense with the reading. Once the Senate has begun to debate a motion to instruct, any
Senator who has been recognized can move to table the motion (unless the time for debating the
motion is controlled by a unanimous consent agreement).
The Senate normally completes these actions quickly and routinely. Most often, it takes the three
required steps by agreeing to a single unanimous consent request, after which the presiding
officer immediately announces the names of the Senate conferees. In practice, Senators do not
often make motions to instruct their conferees.
The majority leader usually makes a unanimous consent request such as the following:
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate disagree to the House
amendments to the bill, S. 1, that the Senate agree to the conference requested by the
House on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and that the chair be authorized to
appoint the conferees on the part of the Senate.
If any Senator objects to such a unanimous consent request, the majority leader can make motions
to take each of the same three actions. He may not offer one motion to take all three actions. Each
motion is debatable under the regular rules of the Senate. Thus, all three motions are subject to
extended debate, and the Senate may invoke cloture on any of them—or on all of them, one at a
time—if that is necessary to bring the debate to a close. Senators may offer various motions
during the Senate’s consideration of the first motion—that the Senate reach the stage of
disagreement—and the second motion—that the Senate agree to go to conference. These motions, ⁵
which rarely are offered, are listed in Riddick’s Senate Procedure.
After the Senate approves the three-part unanimous consent request or after it agrees to the last of
the three motions, which authorizes the presiding officer to appoint Senate conferees, Senators
then can make motions to instruct those conferees. A motion to instruct is fully debatable, and
Senators can offer amendments to the instructions. After the Senate disposes of a motion to
instruct—either by voting for or against it, or by voting to table it—another such motion is in
order. Only when no Senator seeks recognition to offer another motion to instruct does the
presiding officer proceed to appoint the Senate’s conferees.

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