How representative are conference delegations in state legislative chambers? I argue that differing conference rules across state legislative chambers influence majority party control over conference delegations. With an original data set encompassing all state-level conference committees from 2005 to 2016, I compare the observed policy preferences between conference delegation and majority party medians when the majority party unilaterally appoints and when the minority party has influence over conferee selection. My results show that in state legislative chambers where the minority can influence conference appointments, delegations are ideologically biased away from the majority party. These findings underscore how majority parties are limited when minorities have procedural rights.

The power of conference committees is well documented and studied by scholars of the US Congress. But little is known about politics of bicameral agreement within state legislatures. Leveraging variation across states, I explore the conditions under which legislative leaders prefer formal bicameral conference negotiations to informal talks to reach final legislative agreements. Deploying an original dataset of state legislative decisions between 2005 and 2018, I find that ideologically cohesive majority parties favor the use of conferences, disproportionately relying on them to reconcile bicameral differences on salient measures. Majority parties, however, refrain from going to conference in those assemblies that empower the minority party to select its preferred conferees. The interaction of chamber rules and partisan dynamics thus shapes the contours of legislative agreements in systematic ways across the states.