• Learn how the Senate's rules are designed to slow down or even defer, action on legislation by granting enormous parliamentary powers to individual senators

• Analyze how legislating in the Senate differs from legislating in the House

• Discuss the current Congress in terms of political dynamics, leadership, and the role of partisanship

Scheduling and Calling Up Bills on the Senate Floor

• Examine what takes place during the various stages of a typical day on the Senate floor

• Take a behind-the-scenes look at the strategies and factors involved in scheduling legislation for Senate floor action including the interaction between the majority and minority leaders, the competing interests of senators, and procedural factors

• Compare and contrast the scheduling of minor versus major legislation

• Analyze the role of unanimous consent and other measures for bringing bills to the floor

• Learn about the practice of placing a "hold" on legislation

• Study the sequence of floor procedures that occurs after a bill has been scheduled and called up for consideration on the floor

• Discuss the importance of the floor manager's role

• Learn the rules pertaining to filibusters, cloture, and post-cloture filibusters

• Examine voting procedures, and the strategies behind the use of motions to table, reconsider, and recommit

• View videotape of Senate floor action

Amending Legislation on the Senate Floor

• Examine the amendment process in the Senate

• Learn to distinguish different types, classes and degrees of amendments

• Discuss the modification, withdrawal and disposition of amendments

• Understand how members' strategies are influenced by the order in which amendments are voted on

• Examine how conference committees have changed as Congress has changed, i.e. growth of subcommittee power, the rise of omnibus bills, use of multiple referrals

• Learn how differences between the House and Senate are solved via amendments between the houses, and the advantages of using this process

• Discuss pre-conference maneuvering in the House and Senate and the key factors that determine whether a bill does or does not go to conference

• Distinguish between House and Senate procedures for going to conference, and the conferee selection process

• Examine the political and strategic role of instructing conferees before the conference committee meets

• Discuss the selection and the role of the conference committee chairman, how the meeting location influences the dynamics of the conference committee, the different styles of conference committees, and how subconferences are used to streamline the work of large conference committees

• Examine the scope of what the conferees may debate, negotiating strategies used by conferees during the bargaining process, and how institutional differences--particularly the issue of germaneness--impact the bargaining process

• Review the role of the committee staff, other members of Congress, the executive branch, and lobbyists in this final stage of the legislative process

• Review actual applications of parliamentary procedural tactics employed by House and Senate Members/ staff to achieve their objectives

• Presentation of actual case studies of strategies and tactics used on the House and Senate floor to influence the results of legislation

• Discussion of options used to influence legislation pending resolution by the full House of Representatives and the Senate

• Formulating and implementing political lobbying strategies

• Sponsors, champions, and handlers

• What federal agencies need to know

• When to engage in the legislative process

• Using a major piece of legislation as a case study, the faculty will walk participants through the progress of a bill from introduction to presidential signature