01/31/2019
Lawmakers began working to avoid yet another government shutdown. FOX’s Chad Pergram explains in today’s “The Speaker’s Lobby”
I’m Chad Pergram with the Speaker’s Lobby.
The linchpin to avoiding another government shutdown in mid-February is a House/Senate conference committee on border security.
Either the sides work out a deal or there is a serious risk of a government shutdown again in a few weeks.
A conference committee is a bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers appointed by leadership because of their expertise or areas of jurisdiction on a given issue, based on committee assignments.
Here’s what prompts a conference committee: the House and Senate approve similar, but different versions of legislation.
In other words, the House has a Poodle and the Senate has a Labrador Retriever.
Both are canines.
Put them together and you get a Labradoodle.
But it’s still a dog.
The key is similar but different bills from the House and Senate.
The House can’t offer up a Homeland Security Appropriations bill and the Senate comes over with legislation about tribal fishing rights from the Committee on Indian Affairs.
It could be like the House producing horse and the Senate coming up with cow.
They don’t mix.
But if both the House and Senate produce a dog breed, then they can go to a conference committee.
The final legislation is a conference report, which the House and Senate must both again pass and send to the President for signature.
With the Speaker’s Lobby, Chad Pergram. Fox News.
