Congress Project

Daniel Rogers, 3rd period Mr. Powers US Government AP

Where to begin? (The Law Making Process)
For a bill to become law, it first must go through a lengthy process through the
entirety of congress, before reaching the president, and eventually becoming law, but it is
an extensive process that is ripe with opportunities for it to be shot down.
The very first steps for a bill to become law, is the creation of the bill, often by
groups of individuals who essentially specialize in such matters, like think-tanks, although
technically speaking, anyone can propose a bill, it is just much more common from
entities or groups who are very well acquainted with the law making process.
Once the initial bill is written, it must be submitted and sponsored by a member
of congress, anyone works, although the more power they have amongst congress, the
more likely the bill is to pass under their sponsorship.
So the bill is in?
Once a bill has been sponsored and introduced, it is finally “in play”, but don't
get excited just yet, the bill has to overcome many challenges before it can become law.
Depending on the bill (anything related to taxes or money must start in the house of
representatives) it can begin in either the Senate or the House of Representatives, where it
must then be calendared or scheduled in order to have any chance at becoming a law.
For the sake of this presentation, I will be using the hypothetical “Economic
Safety Net” bill as an example, I will refer to it as the ESN Bill from now on.
Let’s walk through the steps now
So we have our bill drafted up, our ESN bill, well we know our bill involves taxes so
we have to send it into the House of Representatives first, so we send it to a representative
we know would agree with the bill and they sponsor it, and let’s imagine they even
manage to get our bill on the calendar as well, what’s next?
Well, in all likelihood, the bill will be shipped off to a specific committee first, where
that committee will then likely send it off to their own subcommittee, where they will
thoroughly review and comb through the bill, potentially altering the bill or even “tabling”
the bill, stopping it dead in its tracks.
Alright, what’s after the committees?
Well, if you make it through the subcommittee and even make through a
committee hearing with the main committee, the bill would promptly be reported out, and
put on the calendar for a floor debate amongst the various members of congress, where
they may even propose amendments, in which case the bill must then start the process
over again with it's new amendments, otherwise it will be finally voted on by everyone in
that house of congress, with its success often being dependent on the Majority Leader and
party Whips (in the House of Reps. we have the Speaker of the House, in the Senate we
have the Senate Majority Leader)
So is it a law yet?
Nope! Not in the slightest, in fact we aren't even halfway through! You see, once our
bill, our hypothetical ESN bill, makes it through a house and is agreed upon by that house,
it repeats an almost mirrored process in the other house, in our case the senate, being
passed to a committee, a subcommittee, needing to pass all of their scrutiny, possibly
needing further alterations where it must then restart the process, and possibly shot down
at almost any point through a Filibuster, where a senator essentially uses their time to talk
about completely unrelated points to try and get the bill shot down out of irritation, and
only preventable with Cloture, where 60 of the 100 must agree to end the debate and vote
on the bill.
So how much is this?
Don’t worry, we could be getting close to the end now, let us assume our ESN bill, made it
onto the calendar, got sent to a committee, made it through the subcommittee, was agreed
on by the committee, sent out for a floor debate and agreed upon by a sufficient number of
representatives, sent to the senate, passes through its own set of committees, gets sent out
for another floor debate, doesn’t get filibustered, and gets agreed upon by a sufficient
number of senators, then we can finally send the bill to some it’s final stops, for bill
signing by the president, who can also decide to veto the bill, stopping it in its tracks
unless a massive majority of both the house and senate vote on it all together.
So we have a law now?
In theory, yes, if our bill was approved by all the committees, survived all the votes,
wasn’t tabled or filibustered, and wasn’t vetoed, we should have a complete and
enforceable law, but there are some likely caveats
When a bill is sent through this process, it is either open or closed rule, essentially
deciding whether or not it can be altered and sent back through the process from the start,
and if the bill is open rule, it is completely possible and even highly likely that some other
changes will be snuck into the bill to become a rider and slip into the legal system, and
underhanded tactic to try and slip laws that may not be agreed upon through votes,
however closed rule bills are far less likely to survive the process and be passed as law.