Whoa there fellas! Even IF the Senate passes this with a AWB rider, it's got to go to a compromise committee or whatever it's called to hash out diferences between the House and Senate versions. There is no way the House members of said committee will stand for this.
Obviously, calling your Senators and letting them know that passage with an AWB rider is unacceptable is what is needed at this point.
from Senate.gov
The Amending Process
Floor consideration of a measure usually begins with opening statements by the floor managers, and often by other Senators. The managers usually are the chair and ranking minority member of the reporting committee or pertinent subcommittee.
The first amendments to be considered are those recommended by the reporting committee. If the committee has proposed many amendments, the manager often obtains unanimous consent that these amendments be adopted, but that all provisions of the measure as amended remain open to further amendment. After committee amendments are disposed of, amendments may be offered to any part of the measure in any order. If the committee recommends a substitute for the full text of the measure, the substitute normally remains open to amendment throughout its consideration.
The Senate may dispose of each amendment either by voting on it directly or by voting to table it. The motion to table cannot be debated; and, if the Senate agrees to it, the effect is the same as a vote to defeat the amendment. If the Senate defeats the motion, however, debate on the amendment may resume.
While an amendment is pending, Senators may propose amendments to it (called second-degree amendments) and to the part of the measure the amendment would change. The Senate votes on each of these amendments before it votes on the first-degree amendment (the amendment to the measure). Many additional complications exist. When a complete substitute for a measure is pending, for example, Senators can propose six or more first- and second-degree amendments to the substitute and the measure before any votes must occur.
If an amendment is considered under a time limitation, Senators may make no motions or points of order, or propose other amendments, until all the time for debating the amendment has been used or yielded back. Sometimes, however, the Senate unanimously consents to lay aside pending amendments temporarily in order to consider another amendment to the measure.
The amending process continues until the Senate orders the bill engrossed and read a third time, which precludes further amendment. Then the Senate votes on final passage.
Resolving Differences with the House
A bill cannot become a law of the land until it has been approved in identical form by both houses of Congress. Once the Senate amends and agrees to a bill that the House already has passed—or the House amends and passes a Senate bill—the two houses may begin to resolve their legislative differences by way of a conference committee or through an exchange of amendments between the houses.
Conference Committees
If the Senate does not accept the House’s position (or the House does not agree to the Senate’s position), one of the chambers may propose creation of a conference committee to negotiate and resolve the matters in disagreement between the two chambers. Typically, the Senate gets to conference with the House by adopting this standard motion: "Mr. President, I move that the Senate insist on its amendments (or "disagree to the House amendments" to the Senate-passed measure), request a conference with the House on the disagreeing votes thereon, and that the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees." This triple motion rolled into one–to insist (or disagree), request, and appoint–is commonly agreed to by unanimous consent. The presiding officer formally appoints the Senate’s conferees. (The Speaker names the House conferees.) Conferees are traditionally drawn from the committee of jurisdiction, but conferees representing other Senate interests may also be appointed.
There are no formal rules that outline how conference meetings are to be organized. Routinely, the principals from each chamber or their respective staffs conduct pre-conference meetings so as to expedite the bargaining process when the conference formally convenes. Informal practice also determines who will be the overall conference chair (each chamber has its own leader in conference). Rotation of the chairmanship between the chambers is usually the practice when matched pairs of panels (the tax or appropriations panels, for example) convene in conference regularly. For standing committees that seldom meet in conference, the choice of who will chair the conference is generally resolved by the conference leaders from each chamber. The decision on when and where to meet and for how long are a few prerogatives of the chair, who consults on these matters with his or her counterpart from the other body.
Once the two chambers go to conference, the respective House and Senate conferees bargain and negotiate to resolve the matters in bicameral disagreement. Resolution is embodied in a conference report, signed by a majority of Senate conferees and House conferees. The conference report must be agreed to by both chambers before it is cleared for presidential consideration. In the Senate, conference reports are usually brought up by unanimous consent at a time agreed to by the party leaders and floor managers. Because conference reports are privileged, if any Senator objects to the unanimous consent request, a nondebatable motion can be made to take up the conference report. Approval of the conference report itself is subject to extended debate, but conference reports are not open to amendment.
Almost all of the most important measures are sent to conference, but these are only a minority of the bills that the two houses pass each year.
Exchange of Amendments between the Houses
Differences between versions of most noncontroversial bills and some major bills that must be passed quickly are reconciled through the exchange of amendments between the houses. The two chambers may send measures back and forth, amending each other’s amendments until they agree to identical language on all provisions of the legislation. Generally, the provisions of an amendment between the houses are the subject of informal negotiations, so extended exchanges of amendments are rare. But there is also a parliamentary limit on the number of times a measure may shuttle between the chambers. In general, each chamber has only two opportunities to amend the amendments of the other body because both chambers prohibit third-degree amendments. In rare instances, however, the two chambers waive or disregard the parliamentary limit and exchange amendments more than twice. The current record is nine exchanges.
At any stage of this process a chamber may accept the position of the other body, insist on its most recent position, request a conference to resolve the remaining differences, or refuse to take further action and allow the measure to die.
The Senate normally takes action on an amendment of the House only when there is an expectation that the amendment may be disposed of readily, typically by unanimous consent. In the absence of such an expectation, the Senate will generally proceed to conference in order to negotiate a resolution to any serious disagreements within the Senate or with the House rather than attempt to resolve them on the floor.
