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The senators were late, and we were getting nervous. We only had a couple more hours to negotiate our committee’s final bills for the legislative session. The staff shook their heads apologetically when we looked over. There was no word on when they’d arrive.

It was my second term as a state representative, so I knew what was happening just as well as every other House member in the room. The Senate stood us up.

It was a common tactic in the final weeks of the session, which always turned the State Capitol into a chaotic game of hide and seek. I once saw a Senate chair stop negotiations on a contentious bill to go to the bathroom. It was such a clear attempt to buy more time that the House chair nearly followed him.

The Legislature’s conference period, the catalyst for the above-referenced melee, is the last opportunity for both chambers to resolve their policy differences and draft compromises on bills they passed in different versions. It sounds good on paper, but it’s pure mayhem in practice. Negotiations on hundreds of bills are crammed into two weeks when legislators, advocates and watchdogs are tired and emotional. 

The process is opaque and frustrating. It’s also consequential. Last year, over 400 bills were considered during conference committees, and 60% of them became law. In other words, anyone looking to influence legislation must be able to navigate the mechanics, pitfalls and opportunities of the conference period, which starts next week.

Overcoming Hurdles

Let’s quickly . If one chamber amends another chamber’s bill, the originating chamber can agree or disagree with the changes. If they disagree, the bill enters the conference process. Once it becomes a , the bill must clear various hurdles to become law.

And each hurdle is a potential death trap. 

First, the House and Senate must appoint conferees to negotiate each bill. These members form the conference committee, which usually consists of three to six legislators per chamber.

Trap No. 1: The bill dies if either chamber chooses not to appoint conferees. 

Trap No. 2: The bill dies if either chamber discharges conferees without appointing new ones.

When appointed, the conferees must schedule a hearing to open negotiations and publish a public notice 24 hours before their initial meeting. 

Trap No. 3: The bill dies if the conferees do not schedule a hearing. 

Once negotiations are opened, bills tend to die less straightforward deaths. If a bill isn’t going to make it out of its conference hearing, the best-case scenario is that the committees discuss their differences in full view of the public and explain why they can’t reach an agreement. But it’s rarely that simple.

In my opening example, we assumed the missing senators decided not to follow through with the language we’d already agreed on. 

Trap No. 4: With a deadline looming, conferees can kill a bill simply by not showing up. If you don’t have enough time to reschedule and don’t have enough members present, you can’t pass a compromise measure.

Decisive Money Committee Chairs

The senators, in my case, weren’t actually hiding. 

Most conference measures can only pass with approval from the House Finance Committee, Senate Ways and Means Committee, or both. So when you follow a bill through conference, you hear a few phrases over and over – “we don’t have Finance approval,” “we’re still waiting on Ways and Means,” and “let’s reconvene.” For the first week, these statements are practically performative. 

By the end of the second week, desperation creeps in. Senators want to know why their House counterparts can’t get Finance approval when Ways and Means has already signed off. House conferees question why senators keep postponing decisions and requesting new changes. Committees begin to reconvene with increasing frequency, moving from once to twice daily to every couple of hours. 

Eventually, someone’s running from room to room granting approvals, or you’re all corralled in one place, hoping the money committee chairs will call your bill number before the clock runs out. We found our senators doing the latter, packed into a conference room one floor above us with every other legislator still trying to get a bill across the finish line. 

Trap No. 5: If a bill has a fiscal implication, even if a negotiated draft is prepped and ready for a vote, the Finance and Ways and Means chairs hold a God-like power over its fate. If they haven’t approved it by the deadline, the bill dies. 

Opportunity Knocks

As messy as it seems, I have yet to meet a single legislator who doesn’t have some version of this process in their state. There are always reforms to be made, but pending a miracle, advocates should know how to spot opportunities amid the chaos. Here are a few suggestions.

Focus your efforts. A single member of a large standing committee can rarely change a bill’s outcome. However, in smaller conference committees where a member showing up can make or break the vote, an individual member can have an outsized impact. Any conferee could be a key ally.

Be a resource. The hectic conference timeline means legislators don’t have time to sit and research new ideas or vague suggestions. If you want something done, give them concrete options. Provide concise, useful facts. Draft sample language. 

Keep showing up. Believe it or not, most lawmakers run for office to help people. When you’re present for their negotiations, you remind them why they should keep trying. And if they know you’re reliable, they might even seek your opinion in the process.