CONFERENCE COMMITTEES

2.06 In all cases of disagreement between the Senate and House on amendments adopted by either house to a bill, memorial or resolution passed by the other house, a Conference Committee consisting of not less than three members nor more than five members from each house may be requested by either house. The other house shall appoint a similar committee.

The manner of procedure shall be as follows: The house of origin passes a bill and transmits it to the other body. If the other body adopts an amendment to the bill and passes it as amended, it shall return the bill with a record of its actions to the house of origin. If the house of origin refuses to concur in the amendment, it shall ask for a Conference Committee, appoint such a committee on its part, and transmit the bill with a record of its action to the other house. If the other house adheres to its amendment, it shall appoint a like committee and return the bill to the house of origin.

All Conference Committees shall be open to the public. As much as practical, meetings of Conference Committees shall be announced as far in advance as possible, with the intent to provide a 24-hour notice, and actions taken shall be agreed upon in an open meeting. At an agreed upon hour the Conference Committee shall meet. The members from each house shall state to the members from the other house, orally or in writing, the reason for their respective positions. The members shall confer thereon. A conference committee may not meet between the hours of midnight and 7:00 a.m., except that a committee may extend a meeting for up to one hour past midnight by a vote of two-thirds of the members appointed to the committee by each house. The chair shall rotate between the Senate and the House of Representatives at least every calendar day, Sundays and holidays excepted. The conferees shall report to their respective houses the agreement they have reached, or, if none, the fact of a disagreement.

If an agreement is reported, the house of origin shall act first upon the report. A Conference Committee report must be limited to provisions that are germane to the bill and amendments that were referred to the Conference Committee. A provision is not germane if it relates to a substantially different subject or is intended to accomplish a substantially different purpose from that of the bill and amendment that were referred to the Conference Committee.

A Conference Committee report may not appropriate a larger sum of money than the larger of the bill or the amendments that were referred to the Conference Committee unless the additional appropriation is authorized by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Majority Leader of the Senate.

A Conference Committee report may not delegate rulemaking to a department or agency of state government or exempt a department or agency of state government from rulemaking unless the delegation or exemption was included in either the bill or the amendment that was referred to the Conference Committee.

A Conference Committee report may not create a new commission, council, task force, board, or other body to which a member of the legislature may be appointed unless the body was created in either the bill or the amendment that was referred to the Conference Committee.

If the report is adopted and repassed as amended by the Conference Committee by the house of origin, the report, the bill and a record of its action shall be transmitted to the other house.

Except after the last Thursday on which the Legislature can meet in regular session in odd-numbered years, and after the last Thursday on which the Legislature intended, when it adopted the concurrent resolution required by Rule 2.03, to meet in regular session in even-numbered years, a written or electronic copy of a report of a Conference Committee shall be placed on the desk of each member of a house, or delivered electronically, twelve hours before action on the report by that house. If the report has been reprinted in the Journal of either house for a preceding day and is available to the members, the Journal copy shall serve as the written report.

The member presenting the Conference Committee report to the body shall disclose, either in writing or orally, the substantial changes from the bill or the amendment as they were last before the body.