I just googled information re the legislative process.
Unless I am incorrect in my understanding of the how a bill is passed into law, I think the FISA bill can be stopped via filibuster. Last night, Russ Feingold objected to the FISA bill being sent to conference committtee. I think that means that unless the House passes the same exact bill as the Senate, then the bill is held up until the objection is removed. It looks like it is up to the House to pass a different version of the FISA bill to slow down the process if not stop it completely. If the House passes a different version from the Senate's bill then it must go to conference. If Senator Feingold objected to referring the Senate bill to conference, then does that stop the process?
Over the fold I posted what I found. Please provide insight and input to help answer my question. Thanks.
Reconciling House/Senate Differences
At some point, both chambers will have passed similar bills. The House and Senate get to this point in one of three possible ways. Most often, similar bills are introduced at about the same time by allies in both chambers. Its sponsors then seek parallel consideration of the legislation in both chambers. Given the differing procedures and political climate in each body, the House and Senate rarely achieve simultaneous enactment. As a result, the chamber which finishes first (almost always the House) sends its completed measure to the second. The second chamber takes up its own bill, but passes it in the form of a grand substitute amendment to the first chamber's version. Now it can be said that both have passed the same bill, albeit differing versions, and the next stage of the legislative process can be reached.
Alternatively, the House could pass legislation first and send it to the Senate. Having no similar bill in place, the Senate debates and amends the House bill, then passes it. Finally, but rarely, the Senate could pass legislation first and send it to the House. With no comparable vehicle of its own, the House debates and amends the Senate bill, then passes it. In either case, both chambers have now adopted a bill with the same bill number, although with different texts.
Once both chambers have passed similar versions of the same bill, the differences must be reconciled before the legislation can be sent to the President for his decision to sign or not sign the bill into law. Differences between House and Senate versions of a bill may be resolved most easily when one chamber simply adopts the other's version without change. Clearly, this happens only on matters of little controversy. More regularly, differences are resolved through one of two procedures: by a process known as amendments between the Houses or by conference committee negotiations.
In Amendments between the Houses, the bill is traded back and forth between the chambers with each offering amendments to the other body's version until one chamber adopts the latest amendment of the other without change. Under the regular order only two volleys per side are permitted. However, if agreement is sensed as close, a special rule from the House Rules Committee may be adopted to allow for an extra volley. In the Senate, unanimous consent would be sought to do the same. Because ending the process just shy of agreement would mean killing a bill for which considerable momentum toward passage has been demonstrated, most requested exceptions to the two-volley rule are granted.
Conference committee negotiations are the more well known of the two methods used to reconcile differences between the two bodies. In the House, conferees or the managers on the part of the House are appointed by the Speaker at the recommendation of the committee chairmen involved. The appointment of conferees, their number, and party composition, rest solely with the Speaker, and cannot be challenged on a point of order.
House rules provide three main criteria for the selection of conferees. A majority of the conferees must 1) generally support the House version of the bill, 2) have been primarily responsible for the legislation during House consideration, and 3) have been proponents of any provisions which were adopted to the bill on the House floor. Although by tradition the Speaker normally takes into consideration the differing attitudes of the majority and minority party toward the bill, that is not always the case. At times the conferees have represented the ratio of majority to minority members in the House overall, but at other times they have been predominantly or exclusively from the majority party in order to meet the three criteria stated above. It is the Speaker who is given the determination of whether or not a majority of the managers selected meet these criteria.
Competition to get on a conference committee is usually quite fierce precisely because Members realize that successful amendments adopted on the House floor may be sacrificed to the Senate by House managers not in support of them. It is also the final stage of the legislative process and the last opportunity to delete or insert language in the bill.
In the Senate, the conferees are chosen strictly by the committee chairmen going to conference. More than any other factor, seniority determines conferee selection in the Senate.
Once configured, conference committees have few rules to follow. The hands of the negotiators are left as free as possible. The goal is, after all, to negotiate a consensus version of the differing bills which a majority in each chamber can vote to support. Successful negotiations require flexibility and freedom. However, one important restriction is addressed in the rules of both the House and Senate. Conferees are limited to matters in disagreement between the two chambers. The rules state clearly that conferees may not delete provisions identical in both bills nor may they insert subject matter not found in either the House or Senate-passed bill. Moreover, the conferees are asked to stay within the range of differences, i.e. not exceed the boundaries that define the House and Senate bills.
In actual practice, even these restrictions are violated in the interests of achieving a consensus. If votes can be picked up by inserting a new program not included in the earlier stages of the legislative process, conferees will add it. If the political support exists for a conference version that technically violates the rules of procedure, exceptions to the regular order are made in both chambers. Procedural correctness will give way to political consensus.
Approval of Conference Report
Once a majority of the conferees have agreed upon the final text of a compromise measure, the conference report is issued. It contains both the legislative language of the final measure, as well as the statement of managers — an explanation of how the compromise was reached between the House and Senate versions.
The conference report must be adopted by a majority vote in both chambers in order to proceed to the President. If the first chamber to take up the report fails to get the conference report adopted, the second chamber never votes on it. Which chamber goes first is usually negotiated. Although procedural rules state the chamber which asked for the conference should act last on the conference report, this rule is often ignored . Most often the House goes first. This is because the rules of the House permit its majority leadership to guarantee a vote on the conference report. In the Senate, however, a vote on final adoption is not guaranteed since a filibuster is always possible. If the Senate cannot end the filibuster, no vote will be held on the conference report. Another factor in the decision of which chamber acts first on the conference report involves the political outlook for the vote on final adoption. If adoption looks certain in one chamber, but unclear in the other, the chamber with the more favorable outlook will go first in order to build political momentum toward passage in the second.
When both chambers have adopted the conference version, an enrolled version is prepared by the enrolling clerk of the chamber which originated the bill. Both the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate must sign the enrolled bill. Their signatures attest to the version as accurate and identical to the form which passed their respective chamber.
Emphasis is mine. I apologize for the extended block quote, but I thought it important to keep all of the information included for all to view.