* How a Bill Becomes a Law
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Laws begin as ideas.
First, a representative sponsors a bill.
The bill is then assigned to a committee for study.
If released by the committee, the bill is put on a calendar to be voted on,
debated or amended.
If the bill passes by simple majority (218 of 435), the bill moves to the Senate, or
the House if it was originally passed in the Senate.
In the Senate, or House the bill is assigned to another committee and, if
released, debated and voted on.
Again, a simple majority (51 of 100) passes the bill.
Finally, a conference committee made of House and Senate members works out
any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill.
The resulting bill returns to the House and Senate for final approval.
The Government Printing Office prints the revised bill in a process called
enrolling.
The President has 10 days to sign or veto the enrolled bill.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• A bill is a proposed law presented to either the House or Senate for
consideration. Most bills that originate in Congress do not come from the
members themselves, but from somewhere in the executive branch.
• Business, labor, agriculture and other special interest groups also often draft
measures as well, and some bills, or at least the ideas for them come from private
citizens who think “there ought to be a law…” and many others are born in the
standing committees of Congress.
• According to Article I, Section 7, Clause 1 of the Constitution, “bills for raising
revenue shall originate in the House.” In other words, any bill that deals with
taxes must first be acted upon by the House of Representatives. Measures
dealing with any other matter may be introduced in either chamber.
• Only members of the respective chambers can introduce legislation in each of
their chambers. In the House, a representative introduces a bill by having it typed
up and dropping it into “the hopper” a box hanging on the side of the Clerk of
the House’s desk. In the Senate, a bill is introduced when the Senator sponsoring
it stands before the Senate chair and asks that it be introduced to the Senate.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The “Hopper”
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• Often before a member introduces a bill, he or she will circulate a letter informing
other members about the measure and why its sponsor thinks it should become
law. This is done in the hopes of attracting other members of Congress to cosponsor the bill, increasing its chances of being passed. By the time many
measures are introduced, in either house, a number of members are listed on
them as co-sponsors.
• There are two types of bills, public and private
• Public Bills are measures applying to the nation as a whole, for example a tax
measure
• Private Bills are measures that apply to certain people or places, rather than to
the entire nation. For example, when the Department of the Interior moved
some grizzly bears from Yellowstone Park to other public locations, and they killed
some sheep, Congress voted to reimburse the rancher who owned the sheep.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• In addition to bills, Congress can also deal with resolutions, of which there are
three different kinds
• A Joint Resolution is similar to a bill in that it has the force of law. They
usually deal with unusual or temporary matters such as appropriating money
for the Presidential inauguration ceremonies. They are also used to annex
territories, or to propose constitutional amendments.
• A Concurrent Resolution deals with matters in which the House and Senate
must act jointly. However, they do not have the force of law and do not
require the President’s signature. They are used most often by Congress to
state a position on some matter, such as foreign affairs.
• A Simple Resolution deals with matters that effect one chamber or the other
and are regularly used for such matters as the adoption of a new rule of
procedure or amending some existing rule. Like concurrent resolutions, they
do not have the force of law, and do not require the President’s approval.
• A bill or resolution often deals with a single subject, but sometimes a rider
dealing with an unrelated matter is included. A rider is a provision not likely to
pass on its own merit that is attached to an important measure certain to pass.
Its sponsors hope that it will “ride” through the legislative process on the strength
of the main measure. Usually they are attached to appropriations measures that
provide money to pay for something. Opponents of these riders are almost
always forced to accept them if they want the main provisions of the bill passed.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Clerk of the House retrieves proposed bills from the hopper, and then
numbers each bill as it is introduced. So H.R. 3410 would be the 3,410th
measure introduced in the House during that term.
• In the Senate, the bill is assigned after receiving the prefix “S”, such as S. 210,
and resolutions are similarly identified in each chamber of Congress.
• The Clerk also gives each proposal a short title, which serves as a summary
of its principal contents. After the bill has received its number and title, it is
entered in the House Journal in the House, and in the Congressional Record
for the day.
• The Journal contains the minutes, or the official record of the daily
proceddings in the House or Senate, while the Congressional Record
contains word for word each speech, debate, comments, votes and motions
of each chamber each day.
• The Record is not necessarily word for word though as members of Congress
have 5 days from the date recorded to change things, and they oftentimes
insert speeches that never really occurred on the floor, reconstruct debates,
and revise thoughtless or inaccurate remarks.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in Committee
• With the proposal, assignment of a number and title, and entry into the
Journal and Record, a bill is said to have had its first reading.
• After the first reading, a bill will be assigned to the appropriate committee
by the Speaker in the House, and the Majority Leader in the Senate.
• What committee a bill goes to is very important, and sometimes a bill may
be sent to multiple committees at once if it deals with multiple complex
issues. Most bills will go to a committee, however, based on its main subject
matter.
• The standing committees are miniature versions of the chambers as a whole,
they consider bills and filter them before they reach the entire chamber for a
vote. Most measures are rejected, or altered substantially before they leave
the committee. In short, a bills fate is decided in committee more so than
on the floor.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in Committee
• Most bills introduced in Congress are pigeon holed, or that is to say they die
in committee when they are simply put away and never acted upon.
• Most pigeonholed bills do not have wide support, but occasionally a bill
comes along that is being pigeonholed that a majority of members do want
to consider, and so a bill can be taken from the committee through the
process of a discharge petition. This enables members to force a bill that
has remained with the committee for at least 30 days to move it to the floor.
• Any member may file a discharge motion. If the motion is signed by a
majority of members, the committee has seven days to report the bill, or
send it to the floor with their recommendations.
• If the committee fails to do that, then any member who signed the petition
can, on the second and fourth Mondays of each month, move that the bill be
discharged from the committee, or taken away from it and sent to the entire
chamber for consideration. If the motion carries, then the rules require the
bill be considered at once.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in Committee
• Once a bill is referred to a committee, the chair of that committee will
usually refer it to a sub committee for investigation.
• Committees and sub committees can compel witnesses to testify before
them using the power of the subpoena, which is a legal order to testify
before them and produce evidence. Failure to do so can result in fines, and
or imprisonment as the person can be charged with contempt of Congress, a
federal crime.
• After the committee has reviewed the bill, it can do one of five things:
• Report the bill favorably, which would then make steering the bill on
the floor the responsibility of the committee chair
• Refuse to report the bill, pigeon holing it
• Report the bill in amended form, as many bills are changed in
committee and oftentimes several similar bills are combined into one
piece of legislation
• Report the bill with an unfavorable recommendation, or
• Report a committee bill, or one designed and drafted in the committee
itself
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the House of Representatives
• Before a bill passed through a committee gets to the floor of the House, it
must be scheduled on one of five calendars, which are;
• The Calendar of the Committee of the Whole House on the State of
the Union, more commonly known as the Union Calendar is the
calendar for discussion of all bills having to do with revenues,
appropriations or government property.
• The House Calendar is for all other public bills
• The Private Calendar is for all private bills
• The Corrections Calendar is for all bills taken from the Union or House
calendar taken out of order by unanimous consent of the House of
Representatives. These are most often minor bills to which there is
little to no opposition
• The Discharge Calendar is only for petitions to discharge bills from
committees
• Under the rules of the House, bills are regularly taken from each of these
calendars for consideration on a regularly scheduled basis. For example, bills
from the corrections calendar are supposed to be considered on the second
and fourth Tuesdays of each month. On “Calendar Wednesdays” the chairs
of each committee can call up one bill from the House or Union Calendars
that has cleared their committee
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the House of Representatives
• Most of the times, the calendars are not followed however, as what most
often happens is the House Rules Committee must grant a rule for the bill
before it can even reach the floor.
• The Rules Committee is composed of representatives from both parties in
proportion to the number of seats each holds in the House.
• Its role is to determine when a bill passed from committee will make it to the
floor, how long debate will be, and what the debate will be about. This is
called the bill’s rule. If the Rules Committee does not grant a bill a rule, it
can effectively kill it.
• The Rules Committee can also grant special rules that sets a time limit on
floor debate, and even restricts or prohibit amendments to certain, or to
even any of the bill’s provisions.
• The Rules Committee can even make certain privileged rules where a bill can
be called up at almost any time, ahead of any other business before the
House. The most privileged measures include appropriations (spending) and
general revenue (tax) bills, conference committee reports, and other special
rules granted by the committee.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the House of Representatives
• On certain days the House may suspend its rules. A motion to the effect
must be approved by a 2/3rd’s vote of the members present. When that
happens, the House moves so far away from its established procedures that
a measure can go through all of the steps in a single day
• Once, and if, a bill reaches the floor, it receives its second reading, where
the Clerk of the House announces the Bill number and title to the House
floor. And, if it is an important enough the Clerk may even read the entire
text of the bill.
• In most instances, important business is handled by The Committee of the Whole.
This is an old parliamentary maneuver that allows a large body to adjourn and
reconvene as a committee that has looser rules than the full body. For example, a
quorum (the number of members that need to be present for business to be
conducted) in the House is 218 of the 435 members, but when in the Committee of
the Whole the quorum needed is only 100 members.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the House of Representatives
• When the House is in the Committee of the Whole, the Speaker steps down
and the Chair is taken over by another member
• When general debate begins in this procedure, the bill receives its second
reading section by section and as each section is read amendments may be
offered. During this time there is a five minute rule, supporters and
opponents of each amendment have just that many minutes to make their
cases. Votes are taken on each section and its amendment as the reading
proceeds.
• Once the bill has been read through, and many run to dozens and even
hundreds of pages, the Committee of the Whole has completed its work. It
then rises, or in other words, dissolves itself, and PRESTO!- they are back as
the House of Representatives. The Speaker returns to the Chair, and the
House formally adopts the committee’s work.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the House of Representatives
• Debate Rules
• The large size of the House of Representatives has required that a long
tradition of severe rules on debate have developed in order to get things to
move along.
• A rule first adopted in 1842 does not allow any member to hold the floor for
longer than an hour without unanimous consent to speak for a longer time.
• Since 1880 the Speaker has had the power to force any member who strays
from the subject at hand, that is does not remain germaine, to give up the
floor
• The majority and minority leaders will generally decide beforehand how they
will split the time to be spent on a bill, but at any time any member may
move the previous question, or demand a vote on the issue from the entire
House. If this motion is adopted, debate ends and an up or down vote must
be taken. This is the only motion that can be used in the House to end
debate.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the House of Representatives
• Voting
• A bill may be subject to several votes on the floor in between voting on each
amendment offered, procedural motions such as tabeling the bill (putting it
off until some later date and time), moving the previous question, etc.
• These several other votes are very often a better guide to who the friends
and foes of proposed legislation are. Sometimes a representative will vote
for a bill that seems certain to pass, when previously he had voted for
amendments and motions that would have killed it.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the House of Representatives
• Voting
• The House uses four different methods for taking floor votes:
• Voice vote: The Speaker calls for the “ayes” and the “noes” and then
announces the result
• If any member feels the Speaker has made an error in judging the voice
vote they may demand a standing vote, also known as a Division of the
House. All in favor, and then all opposed will stand and be counted by
the Clerk.
• With the vote of 1/5th of the quorum any member can demand a teller
vote. The Speaker then appoints a teller from each party. The
members pass between the tellers and are counted by them. This has
largely been replaced by electronic voting.
• A Roll Call Vote also known as a record vote can be demanded by 1/5th
of the members present
• In 1973 the House installed a computerized voting system for all quorum
calls and record votes. Members are issued their own unique plastic ID card
which they can insert into any one of 48 voting stations around the floor, and
select one of three options, “Yea,” “Nay,” or “Present.”
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the House of Representatives
• Voting
• The “Present” button is most often used for a quorum call, but can also be
used by a member when he wants the record to show he was present, but
does not want to go on record as being “for” or “against” a bill. On certain
votes, like the overriding of a veto, a “present” vote is not allowed, however.
• A large electronic master board above the Speaker’s chair shows instantly
how each member has voted.
• House rules allow the members 15 minutes to answer quorum calls or cast
record votes. Voting ends when the Speaker pushes a button to lock the
electronic system, producing a permanent record of the vote at the same
time.
• Doing it the old way by voice would take the Clerk 45 minutes to do a roll
call, and could consume up to 3 months of time total every two years!
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the House of Representatives
• Final Steps in the House
• Once a bill has been approved in the second reading it is then engrossed or
printed for the public record in its final form. Then it is read a third time, by
title, and a final vote is taken.
• Invariably, a bill is approved at the third reading, and the Speaker signs it and
has it delivered to the Senate president’s desk.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Bill in the Senate
• The biggest differences between how a bill goes through the Senate, and
through the House are;
• The proceedings are less formal
• The rules are less strict
• There is only one calendar
• The Majority Leader call the bill to the floor
• Nearly unrestricted debate, which can lead to the filibuster
• Members may speak on anything
• Unanimous consent agreements worked out between the Majority and
Minority leaders limit consideration time and amendments
• A two speech rule, where Senators can only give two speeches on any
given question
• The Senate has a reputation as the most deliberative legislative body in the
world, and are rightly proud of that reputation as a body where important
matters are thoroughly discussed before a decision is made.
• Once a bill passes the Senate, it will go to the House if the bill originated in
the Senate, and if it has already passed the House, then when the Senate
passes it, it then goes to the desk of the President of the United States,
unless………
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Conference Committee
• Any measure that survives the rigors of being passed by either chamber
must meet one more challenge in order to become a law, and that is it must
pass both chambers with the exact same wording.
• The way this is done is through a Conference Committee, or a committee
with member from both the House and the Senate who meet to iron out the
differences between their two versions of the bill.
• The members, or conferees, are chosen by the respective leaders in each
chamber, and they can only consider the differences in the bill, and not add
anything new. Oftentimes they do have to come up with something new,
however, in order to get both sides to agree.
• The Conference Committee has often been described as the “third house of
Congress” because of the importance of its role.
* How a Bill Becomes a Law
• To the President
• Once a bill is passed by both houses of Congress, it is then sent to the
President for his consideration. The President can then do one of four
things.
• He can sign the bill, and then it becomes law
• He can refuse to sign the bill, known as a veto, and then it goes back to
Congress
• He can allow the bill to become law without his signature, if within ten
days of receiving it (not counting Sundays) he does nothing about it,
and
• If Congress adjourns its session within ten days (again, not counting
Sundays) of submission of a bill to the President, and the President
chooses not to act, then the measure dies. This is known as a pocket
veto.
• Once a vetoed measure returns to Congress, it can override the veto with a
2/3rd’s vote of each chamber, thereby making it law without the approval of
the Presdient.