The Senate voted on Wednesday to go to conference on an overhaul of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law.
Senators agreed by a voice vote to formally begin working out their differences with House lawmakers, after both chambers passed their rewrites of the law in July.
{mosads}Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said ahead of the vote that she and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, have had “really good conversations” with their House counterparts about the conference negotiations.
Lawmakers are hoping to quickly wrap up their talks and get a bill on President Obama’s desk by the end of the year.
But Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) suggested ahead of Wednesday’s votes that lawmakers were rushing into a conference with the House and potentially losing their leverage to influence the final compromise legislation.
“From the surface, it will still look like the conference process is happening, is unfolding, in the matter in which it’s supposed to. But underneath the surface, we know that all of this has already been prearranged, precooked, predetermined by a select few members of Congress working behind closed doors free from scrutiny,” the Utah Republican said.
He added that Wednesday’s vote “was scheduled on extremely short notice so that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the rest of us to influence the substance of the conference report through motions to instruct.”
Lee was one of 17 lawmakers to vote against the Senate legislation earlier this year, known as the Every Child Achieves Act.
Alexander, however, fired back that if lawmakers “want to announce our differences, we could stay home and speak on a street corner.”
“After we announce our differences, our job is to get a result. We’re the United States Senate, not the Iraq parliament,” he added.
The voice vote to go to conference came after senators voted 91-6 on a procedural vote on going to conference. Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), James Risch (R-Idaho) and presidential candidates Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) voted against moving forward.
The Senate also named its conferees to the negotiations with the House. Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) were appointed to the conference committee.