Conventional Path Of Bills To Become Laws

In order to start the process a member of congress must introduce a bill; the way do this is by putting it into something called a hopper. That is wooden box for the HOR or presenting it to one the clerks in the senate’s office. Now, if a president wants to propose a bill he, himself cannot present it must be someone from congress as well. Following that it’s to send the bill to a committee where it falls under a certain group that matches the subject. It is later sent to subcommittees where most of the writing is done, but since its done there and they have more specific goals it highly influences the outcome of the bill.

Now though we see that at least 80-90% of bills don’t make it past this step. If it does it gets sent to the floor. Once it is there the majority and minority party designate someone to guide the debate. If the bill is passed, but with different discrepancies then they have to be resolved. If no agreement can be made then the bill dies; if they manage to work something out and agree, then the bill is sent to the president. Once it gets to this stage the president has quite a few options: one he approves and signs then the bill is law in ten days. If he objects he can do something called a veto in which he sends it back to the chamber where it originated from with a statement of objection or the reasons why he did not side by it. Although he is the president congress may overturn this veto if 2/3 of both the house and senate agree and the bill becomes a law.

Finally, if he does not act on the bill and congress is in session within 10 days it becomes a law. On the other hand, if congress is not in session and he decide to not act then the bill dies, and it is called a pocket veto. This is all theory; the reality is that many laws do not follow this orderly path for instance a discharge petition may take place bypassing the committee system. An example would be the attack on 9/11 in which an approved version of the Patriots act was to be considered, but then it just disappeared. Replaced with new 100-page bills that needed to be voted on the next day. Another way is that bills are adjusted post- committee and it reaches the floor to increase the chances of it passing. Thirdly to bypass legislation they can issue a summit meeting, to which they compromise and make it a done deal. Lastly there is something called omnibus legislation; meaning leadership task force can be used in place of committees. Even though a bill passes with someone from congress the way thing is worked are quite differently. Well start with how the senate has 6-year terms so their views don’t change as often, but the house has 2-year terms for their member and their views are always changing shifting the spectrum of it as whole in some cases. The second is the floor process it is much simpler for the senate and less structured meanwhile the house is more complex.

Although this has to do much more with the size of each chamber. Now it’s actually much easier to navigate in the house due to the reeds rules in 1890 as it made the house much more majority party orientated. Another thing is that even though senators have unlimited debate known as a filibuster they actually set themselves more limits to operate more like the house, meanwhile even though the house has more rules there are ways to go around them. (Bianco, Canon, 2017) From everything that has been described above the way that legislation is affected is that congress can cut funding for the agencies if not implanted correctly, also known as power of the purse. Now, this is rarely used because as anything it has pros and cons and if they cut funding they take all the good as well as the bad that the agency does. Second, is that they as in congress hold hearings and investigations through something called fire alarm oversight. When an incident springs out of the nowhere and they see something suspicious. There was a case with health and human services secretary Kathleen Sebelius, about rollouts of healthcare. Finally, you have advice and consent from the senate on presidential appointments. (Bianco, Canon, 2017)