How Kansas Conference Committees Resolve House-Senate Differences
TLDR
A Kansas conference committee is a temporary negotiating committee formed when the House and Senate have passed different versions of the same measure and the chamber of origin will not accept the other chamber’s amendments. Under the 2025–2026 joint rules, it ordinarily consists of three House members and three senators. The conferees produce a conference committee report, commonly called a CCR, that each chamber must accept or reject without floor amendments. “In conference” therefore means the bill’s final legislative language remains unsettled. The key records to watch are the conference schedule, the CCR, any staff brief, and the adoption votes in both chambers.
The Kansas conference committee process gives selected legislators a way to resolve House-Senate differences without sending amendments endlessly between the two chambers. It is often one of the last major decision points for a bill, but appointment of a conference committee does not guarantee an agreement, final passage, or enactment.
When a Kansas bill goes to conference
A conference becomes possible after one chamber passes a measure and the second chamber changes it. When the amended measure returns, the chamber where it originated may agree to the amendments, refuse to agree, or refuse and request a conference committee. Conference is needed only if the chambers have not accepted identical language.
- The chamber of origin passes a bill or other measure.
- The second chamber passes it with amendments.
- The measure returns to the chamber of origin.
- That chamber may concur in the amendments, nonconcur, or nonconcur and request a conference committee.
- If conference is requested and conferees are appointed, the designated House and Senate members negotiate possible language.
- If they reach an agreement, they sign and submit a conference committee report for consideration by both chambers.
This sequence distinguishes a conference committee from an ordinary standing committee. A standing committee handles subjects throughout a legislative session and may hold hearings on many bills. A conference committee is created to address disagreement over a specific measure and ends after completing that assignment or failing to reach an agreement.
Who serves on a Kansas conference committee?
The governing details appear in the Legislature’s House and Senate joint rules. Under the rules for the 2025–2026 biennium, a conference committee ordinarily has three senators and three representatives. The Senate president appoints the Senate conferees, and the House speaker appoints the House conferees. Those leaders may agree to a committee of a different size.
| Feature | Ordinary arrangement under 2025–2026 rules |
|---|---|
| Membership | Three senators and three representatives |
| Appointments | Senate president appoints senators; House speaker appoints representatives |
| Minority representation | At least one conferee from each chamber ordinarily comes from that chamber’s minority party unless its minority leader waives representation |
| Chair | Generally the first-named conferee from the chamber where the measure originated, subject to exceptions in the joint rules |
| Purpose | Negotiate a report that can receive approval from both chambers |
Conferees do not represent the entire membership in the sense of casting final votes for their chambers. They negotiate and recommend language. The full House and full Senate retain the power to accept or reject the resulting report.
What conferees may negotiate
Conferees can retain, remove, or revise provisions while working toward language acceptable to both chambers. Kansas rules also permit a report to include certain material beyond the competing versions immediately before the committee. A report may address subject matter in the measure in conference and, within applicable rules and constitutional limits, incorporate material from measures adopted or passed during the same biennium. The rules limit a report to no more than four additional bills, resolutions, or parts of them.
That authority explains why readers should not assume a conference report merely chooses between the House version and the Senate version line by line. The negotiated document may restructure the measure or incorporate eligible provisions from other legislation.
A concrete example appears in a Kansas Legislative Research Department brief dated March 24, 2026. The brief said the conference committee for House Substitute for Senate Bill 260 removed the substitute bill’s contents and inserted or added material associated with Senate Bill 392, House Bill 2446, Senate Bill 451, and Senate Bill 65. That example shows what the rules can permit; it does not mean every conference report combines multiple measures. Read the SB 260 conference committee report brief.
What a conference committee report does
The conference committee report is the conferees’ formal recommended resolution. It identifies the measure and states the amendments or substitute language on which the conferees have agreed. Depending on the bill and the available records, readers may also find a staff brief explaining the report’s major provisions.
The most important procedural constraint is that legislators cannot amend the conference committee report on the House or Senate floor. Each chamber must vote to adopt or reject the package presented by the conferees.
That up-or-down structure changes the practical choice. A legislator may support one section and oppose another but cannot separate those provisions through a floor amendment to the report. Changing the package generally requires rejection or another conference process rather than editing the CCR during debate.
The possible outcomes after conference
Both chambers adopt the report
When the House and Senate both adopt a conference committee report, their votes place the two chambers in agreement on the measure’s final legislative text. Adoption is final legislative action before the measure moves through the remaining process toward presentation to the governor. It is not, by itself, proof that the measure is already law.
A chamber rejects a regular report
Under the joint rules, failure of the standard motion to adopt a conference committee report generally kills the measure. Readers should confirm the recorded action in the appropriate chamber journal rather than infer the result from an old schedule entry or an earlier bill status.
Conferees report that they could not agree
Conferees may instead report that they were unable to agree and request appointment of another conference committee. That report follows a different path from a regular report containing negotiated final language. It signals that negotiations have not produced a package ready for final adoption.
Timing also matters across the two-year legislative cycle. A measure still in conference when the regular session adjourns in an odd-numbered year may remain alive for the following even-numbered-year session of the same biennium. Adjournment therefore does not always end the matter permanently.
Are conference committee meetings public?
Kansas joint rules require conference committee meetings to be open to the public. They also prohibit adjournment for the purpose of circumventing that open-meeting policy.
Readers should not treat that rule as a promise that every meeting will have the same advance notice, livestream, recording, or online documentation. Those details can vary. The practical approach is to check the official schedule repeatedly during periods of active negotiation and then confirm what happened through the report, journals, and bill history.
How to track a bill that is in conference
Conference negotiations can move quickly, especially late in a session. A reader following a particular measure should use several official records rather than relying on one status label.
- Open the measure’s page on the Kansas Legislature website. Confirm the bill number, title, originating chamber, current status, and most recent actions.
- Review the action history. Look for nonconcurrence in amendments, a request for conference, and the appointment of conferees.
- Check the official conference committee schedule for a listed meeting. Schedule information helps identify planned activity but is not a substitute for the later record of what the chambers did.
- Find the conference committee report. Read the actual amendments or substitute text instead of assuming the report preserves either chamber’s earlier version.
- Look for a Kansas Legislative Research Department brief when one is available. A brief can provide a more readable description, but document availability varies by measure.
- Check the Kansas Legislature reports pages for relevant in-conference and conference-report records.
- Review the House Journal and Senate Journal for motions, adoption votes, procedural actions, and other entries associated with the report.
- After both chambers act, follow later records for enrollment, presentation to the governor, gubernatorial action, or any further constitutionally authorized proceedings.
Names of conferees matter because they identify the legislators directly assigned to negotiations, but a list of appointees does not reveal the final result. The signed CCR and the votes of both chambers are the more decisive records.
How to read “in conference” correctly
An “in conference” status means the House and Senate have not yet settled on identical final language and a conference process is active or unresolved. It does not mean that the bill passed, failed, or became law.
It also does not necessarily mean negotiations are limited to choosing one chamber’s text wholesale. Because the joint rules permit specified additional material from the current biennium, the eventual report can look materially different from the versions that first created the disagreement. The scope still remains subject to legislative rules and constitutional limits.
Finally, a conference committee should not be confused with a joint interim committee. An interim committee generally studies assigned subjects between regular legislative work periods and may make recommendations. A conference committee negotiates a specific House-Senate disagreement in the lawmaking process.
The practical takeaway
When a Kansas bill enters conference, treat its language as unsettled. Identify the conferees, monitor the public schedule, and read the conference committee report when it appears. Then verify whether both the House and Senate adopted that exact report.
Those two adoption votes are the decisive legislative records. Until both occur, the chambers have not completed agreement on the conference package. Even after adoption, continue following the measure through enrollment and gubernatorial action before describing it as law.