Congressional politics 135similar amendments in both Houses, but if important differences persist
then a conference committee must be set up, with members from both Hous-
es, to hammer out a compromise. This is a rather contradictory consequence
of the autonomy of the two Houses of Congress, for after each of them has
spent a great deal of time and effort working on a Bill, they must turn the
final decisions over to a small number of their members, working in secret,
to produce a draft that may differ considerably from the version so recently
enacted by them. It is true that the conference committee simply submits a
report to both Houses, which must be accepted by them if the legislation is
to pass, but the power of the committee lies in the fact that each House must
accept or reject its report outright. Any attempt to amend the Bill as report-
ed by the conference committee would necessitate another conference, and
the agreed compromise upon which the conference report was based might
be shattered.
Thus conference committees have considerable power, and appointment
of the managers, as they are called, to represent each House on an important
piece of legislation is crucial in determining the sort of compromise that
will be reached. Formally the power of appointing managers lies with the
Speaker and the President of the Senate, but they usually follow the wishes
of the chairmen of the committees concerned with the Bill. The members of
conference committees tend to be the more senior members of either House,
and the influence of the two standing committee chairmen in the proceed-
ings of the conference committee is bound to be considerable. There is thus
a danger that, when the more senior members of the committee have been
forced on the floor of the House to accept amendments of which they disap-
proved, the offending amendments may be quietly dropped in conference,
on the grounds that it was necessary to do so in order to get agreement with
the managers from the other House. Even at this late stage in the legislative
process, the president, congressional leaders or interest groups, and in par-
ticular the administrative agencies concerned with the legislation, may try to
influence the outcome of the negotiations in the conference committee.
Party committees
There are a number of party committees in each House of Congress: cam-
paign committees, policy committees, and committees on committees. The
last-named are very important, for it is they who assign members of the party
to the standing committees of Congress. The standing committees are of
varying degrees of importance and, therefore, of varying degrees of desir-
ability. Members hope for assignment to the plum committee positions in
order to impress their constituents, and also in order to be able to influence
the most important decisions in the legislature. In the Senate this function
is performed by the Democratic Steering Committee and by the Republican
Committee on Committees; in the House, by the Democratic Steering and
Policy Committee and by the House Republican Committee on Committees.