01.01.70
These folks then get together in a apartment in the Capitol and horse-trade until they’ve got a deal. Then both chambers vote on it, and voilà , you’ve got a 98 on your Gov 101 settled.
For many years, about 95 percent of bills that had House and Senate versions were finished off this way. But by the Congress that ended in 2010, only about 58 percent of Firm-Senate differences over impending laws were settled via conference, according to Congressional Examination Service numbers.
So when Speaker John Boehner in late December called for a symposium committee to resolve differences over the payroll tax-cut bill, the Senate reacted as if he were asking to relate via Teletype, or some other old-fashioned technology.
Why the decline in conference committees? Trends in partisanship, of definitely. Minority parties are more inclined to try to throw sand in the legislative gears, and the formal house of a conference makes that fairly easy. So majority parties are apt to by them completely and just send amendments back and forth until House and Senate versions of a bill are corresponding.
Source: Christian Science Monitor