Suzi Wizowaty

It takes a long time to make good laws. This is a little dry, but bear with me. Someone introduces a bill into one of the two bodies—let’s say the House in this case—where the Speaker assigns it to a committee. The committee takes testimony on the bill, sometimes for weeks, making changes and more changes. The House, by definition, takes more thorough testimony than the Senate? Why? Because House members serve on only one committee, while Senators divide their time between two.

So we've taken weeks of testimony, and we, the committee, "pass out" the bill—typically the outcome for about 10% of the bills introduced. If the committee passes out the bill, it returns to the floor of the House where it started. Here it goes through two more “readings” over two days, and any legislator may introduce an amendment before either reading. The committee of jurisdiction, as it is called, may have met early that morning to consider the amendments and vote on them. If the bill passes third reading, it then goes, in this case, to the Senate, where the process is repeated. The designated Senate committee may make all kinds of changes—may even propose a “strike-all” amendment which is just what it sounds like: getting rid of everything in the original bill and substituting something else. The Senate committee now votes out the newly amended bill, which goes to the full Senate and, typically, passes. (Bills don’t typically make it to the floor without reasonable assurance of passage. They could, however, die anywhere else along the line.)

If the bill passes the other body, in this case the Senate, remember that at this point the bill may or may not resemble the original bill. If the Senate happened to accept the House’s bill, the bill now goes directly to the governor’s desk for his signature. If, as is more likely, the Senate bill differs from the House bill, it must return to the House. If the changes are minimal, it’s possible that the House will accept the bill.

But it is more likely that the changes are significant enough that the House committee of jurisdiction will recommend that the House NOT concur with the Senate amendment and that a committee of conference be created.

Here is where the “fun” begins. A committee of conference consists of three senators and three representatives. If almost anything could happen along the way, now truly anything can happen. Here politicians negotiate: if you want X, you have to give me Y. A situation can change minute by minute.

Good or bad, torturous or intriguing, frustrating or rewarding, this is politics.