How a Bill Becomes a Law

First Steps

Bill is assigned to a committee

In subcommittee, a bill goes through the following phases:

Phase 1: Hearings (pros and cons are given to the bill, usually by the supporters or opponents)

Phase 2: Markup (changes are made to the document

Phase 3: Report (Vote on whether to send it back to standing committee)

House Rules Committee

Rules Committee determines what order bills are debated, as well as the rules for the debate

Chose to have a closed rule, which limits the floor debate and amendments to a bill

Chose to have an open rule, which allows floor debate and introduction of amendments

Speaker of the House has a lot of power with the Rules Committee and can help set schedule and rules

House and Senate: Floor Debate

Using the Power of Recognition (no one can speak unless first recognized by either the Speaker or the majority leader), bills go through three main parts:

general debate on the bill

debate and voting on amendments to the bill

voting on the final passage of the bill

House Floor Debate:

Short time to debate - normally only one hour for both pros and cons; give some floor time to colleagues who want to speak on the bill

Senate Floor Debate

Luxury of more time, so Senators can speak for endless time if no limit established

leads to filibusters (prolonged debate and other delaying tactics aimed at blocking a bill favored by the majority of lawmakers)

1917 - Senate adopted the cloture rule, which requires 3/5th of the Senators support to end the debate

Senators can put a hold on bills before debate that basically shows the intent to filibuster

Amendments to the Bill

House can vote on any changes to the bill, and amendments have to be relevant to the content of the bill

Senate doesn’t have this rule, so riders are often added to bills that have nothing to do with that bill; riders can create a Christmas Tree Bill because of all the added amendments for special interests

Voting on a Bill

3 ways votes can be cast:

Voice vote

Standing vote

Roll-call vote - each member casts vote either when called or electronically

Voting Pressures Representatives and Senators face several

pressures when casting votes:

pressure from constituents and own personal views

pressure from interest groups

pressure from party leaders

pressure from collegues to “trade” votes (logrolling)

Final Steps

Eventually, the House and Senate must vote and pass the identical bill

if different forms of the bill pass, then the Conference Committee is formed to work out a compromise

Bill must then pass an up-or-down vote in both houses (as it is - no changes allowed)

President’s role

President has 10 days to either:

sign the bill into law

veto the bill

take no action; it becomes a law after 10 days of no action if Congress is in session; if not, then the bill dies (Pocket veto)

Congress then has a chance to override the veto with 2/3 majority vote in both houses