Conference Committee

Definition

A conference committee is a temporary panel composed of House and Senate conferees formed for the purpose of reconciling differences in legislation that has passed both chambers.

Analogy

Think of a conference committee as the final round in a cooking competition. Both teams have made their own versions of the same dish (the bill), but now they need to come together and combine the best parts of each to create one final, perfect dish that everyone can agree on.

Related terms

Bicameral Legislature: A legislative body with two branches or chambers, such as the U.S. Congress, which consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Joint Committee: A committee made up of members from both houses of a bicameral legislature.

Bill Reconciliation: The process by which Congress aligns separate versions of a bill passed by the House and Senate into a single unified bill.