Dear Hecate
When do the Members of the Conference Committee begin to meet? Are the meetings open to the public? What's the best way for us to protect our earmark in the House Budget?
Worried in Worcester
Dear Worried
This coming week the Staffs of both Ways and Means Committees will sit together and begin to review and confirm the differences between the House and Senate budget.........line item by line item.
The final list will be distributed to the Leadership and Members of the Conference Committee in each branch.
Senate Leadership will meet with the Senate Members to begin to identify Senate priorities and the House Leadership will meet with the House Members to being to identify House priorities. (For example we know that there are a number of outside sections in the Senate Budget that set new policy, and we know that the House has already stated that they don't like to insert new policy intiatives in the Budget. Another example is the big difference between the House and Senate in the amount and distribution of the Chapter 70 funds.)
After each branch has established their priorities, Conference Committee Members will begin to meet jointly in private to offer and negotiate compromises on some individual line items. Staff from each Ways and Means committee are always present to offer technical assistance. Sometimes the negotiations around uncontroversial items are quick -- let's just split it down the middle. Sometimes a controversial issue can take weeks of back and forth.
For this purpose controversial means that one or both branches have identified that the line item as a priority, and are not going to give until and unless their Leadership tells them they can.
So your job is to make your line item a priority by first flooding the House Leadership and each member of the House Conference Committee will all the reasons why they should fight to make sure the House version of the line item is in the final Conference Report. Ask each House consponsor and supporter of your earmark to communicate in writing to the Leadership and to each of the Conferees.
Your second job is to flood the Senate Leadership and each member of the Senate Conference Committee with all the reasons why they should accept the House version. (At all costs avoid the technically correct phrase of asking the Senate to "yield" to the House on this line item. Assume they were misinformed or mistaken, or maybe your earmark slipped through the cracks.)Get any Senate supporters to communicate in writing to the Leadership and each of the Conferees.
While the Conferees and the staff do their best to keep everything secret until they have finished, your House and Senate supporters might be able to get some hints before the conference concludes in the final public meeting.
Get to work.
Who is Hecate?
Hecate is a Greek Goddess who served as a guide and coach at the crossroads of Hades, where after crossing the River Styx, Greek souls found themselves facing three choices: the Elysian Fields, abode of the great and heroic; the Fields of Asphodel, for all who had led a blameless but ordinary life; or to Tartarus, a sunless land of punishment for criminals.
Hecate's best known role in Greek mythology was guiding Persephone, the goddess of spring, on her annual journeys between Hades and Earth. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hecate is portrayed as a nurturing and protective guide for Persephone on those annual journeys.
