Critical Role of House-Senate Conference Committee and Importance of Selection of the Conferees
More than ever, in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation, the role of the upcoming House-Senate Conference Committee will be critically important. Traditionally, once conference committee reaches an agreement, the floors of both Houses usually accepted the compromise report of the conference committee. It is thus critically important to learn who will be selected to the conference committee by each House. The key players in the selection are the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, Majority and Minority leaders in both Houses.
In the Senate, the floor has already decided how the conferees from the Senate will be selected. It proposes to send conferees at the ratio of 14 from the House and 12 from the Senate. On the Senate side, all the conferees will be selected from the Judiciary Committee at the ratio of 7 from the Republicans and 5 from the Democrats. On the Republican side, the Majority leader will select the seven Republican conferees and the Minority leader will select the five Democrat conferees. Without doubt, the Democrats will select the hardcore supporters of the CIR, but it is unclear who the Majority leader Bill Frist will pick on the Republican side. He may attempt to balance between the hardcore supporters and the hardcore opponents within the party. We just wish that the hardcore Republican opponents who posed a roadblock to the today's passage of the bill in the Senate as revealed in the amendment and final roll calls do not take a dominant power on the Republican side of the Senate delegaton. Readers may want to know who these opponents are by checking the voting records of S. 2611.