A Revised Theory of Winning in House-Senate Conferences

Abstract

The question, “Who wins in House-Senate conferences?” has largely been answered for recent Congresses. But the question, “Why does the Senate win?” has not been adequately answered. The research reported here presents and tests some necessary conditions of a theory that provides an answer to this question. The Senate wins because it is most frequently the second acting chamber and, because it has constitutionally derived power over House decisions, giving it the capacity to get the adjustments it makes in House bills accepted in conference. In the minority of cases in which the Senate acts first, the House “wins” in conference. Unlike earlier attempts to explain conference outcomes, the theory proposed here is consistent with the overall pattern of House dominance in the legislative process.