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                                                             Order Code 98-382 GOV
                                                          Updated February 28, 2003



 CRS Report for Congress

              Received through the CRS Web




                 Conference Reports and

             Joint Explanatory Statements

                              Stanley Bach
               Senior Specialist in the Legislative Process
                    Government and Finance Division

                          Christopher M. Davis
                Analyst in American National Government
                    Government and Finance Division


    When a conference committee completes its work successfully, the committee
presents and explains its agreements in two documents: first, a conference report; and
second, a joint explanatory statement, sometimes called a statement of managers.!

    The conference report presents the formal legislative language on which the
conference committee has agreed. The joint explanatory statement explains the various
elements of the conferees' agreement in relation to the positions that the House and
Senate had committed to the conference committee.

    Two copies of each document must be signed by a majority of the House conferees
and by a majority of the Senate conferees. One pair of the signed documents is retained
by each house's conferees. Thus, a conferee who supports the conference agreement signs
four signature sheets, two for the conference report and two for the joint explanatory
statement. Of course, conferees who do not support the agreement are not expected to
sign any of the signature sheets.

    The House and Senate create a conference committee to resolve the disagreements
that result when one house passes a bill and the other house then passes the same bill with
one or more amendments. It is those amendments that are in disagreement between the
houses and that are the subjects of conference negotiations. In their conference report, the
conferees propose a way to resolve the disagreement created by each of the amendments.

    Assume that the House passed a bill and that the Senate later passed the same bill
with, for example, three discrete amendments. These Senate amendments are numbered


1 This report was written by Stanley Bach, formerly a Senior Specialist in the Legislative Process
at CRS. Dr. Bach has retired, but the other listed author updated the report and is available to
answer questions concerning its contents.


       Congressional Research Service **o The Library of Congress

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