The final two weeks of the legislative session focus on a vital but sometimes misunderstood aspect of lawmaking: conference committees. This is the process whereby members of the Senate and House come together to work out the details of bills that have emerged from the respective chambers in different forms. For example, if a bill originated in the Senate, crossed over to the House, and then was amended by a House committee, there would be two different versions of the bill. Since both chambers must agree on a bill before it can go to the governor for signature, House and Senate conference committee members — who have been assigned by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, respectively — meet to reach a consensus.

By this point in the process, both the House and the Senate have considered and passed similar bills, and so have conducted hearings, received testimony, and debated various drafts in their respective chambers. In other words, members of the conference committee have extensive records to refer to in crafting a compromise that address the varied concerns reflected in the different House and Senate proposals.

Discussions in conference are often about details. In most cases, general policy decisions have already been made, and are reflected in the fact that the bill in question has made it through the process in both legislative chambers. Particularly with regard to bills that call for the appropriation of state funds to support a program, the amount of the appropriation is left blank to be determined in conference. An unfortunate but unavoidable fact of life in the legislature is that there is never enough money available to fund every worthy project.

While there is sometimes a perception that money matters are left to the last minute, or that conferencing on appropriations is a way of avoiding public scrutiny of spending decisions, the reality is that these decisions have to be made in light of all other spending decisions, and so must be considered at the end of the session. If budget decisions were instead made piecemeal over the course of the legislative session, we would run the risk of encountering a deserving program late in the proceedings and find that no money is available to support it. Taking most spending matters as a group helps ensure that our priorities remain in order, and that important policy decisions are not left to the happenstance of when a bill arises during the session.

The final goal of conference is to work quickly and efficiently to consider a large number of bills that have survived legislative review. Decisions are based on the wealth of information produced by the tremendous amount of work by legislators and staff over the preceding months, including research, legal analyses, and public testimony gathered during earlier hearings. The work is always engrossing, frequently intense, and sometimes exhausting. Yet for all of its challenges, conference is to me a satisfying high point of our four-month legislative session.