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"How a bill becomes a law"
- This is not a real, singular process because bills can become laws in
many many ways
House side of process
- Introduce (submit) legislation to get a "house resolution number"
- Committee Stage - referred to appropriate Standing Committee
- Speaker of House does this
- Can refer to one or many committees
- Multiple referral means it's more likely to die/change
- Standing Commitee refers to subcommittee
- Marked up for changes, can die (get buried)
- Full Committee discusses and votes on marked up version
- Rules Committee -- sets rules for debate on bill
- Floor Action - scheduled by Speaker (time limit, agenda position)
- (Germane) amendments can get added and get debated separately
- *After* amendments, the amended bill is voted on
- Amendments can remove support for the bill
- Simple majority to pass
Senate side of process (often introduced concurrently, sometimes
multiple bills on either side correspond on one issue, sometimes
consecutive)
- Introduction: senate resolution number
- President pro temp (maybe multiple) refers to standing committees,
- Committee Stage: passes through the subcommittee, full committee
landmines; often longer timeframes in the Senate
- NO Rules Committee
- Scheduled by "majority leader" (not president pro temp, who is the
most senior member of the majority party)
- Power to improve/worsen chance of passing
- Majority leader, like speaker, chooses Joint Committee members
- Appointment power
- Floor action - much less formal rule system
- Any (non-germane) amendments can be added
- Can allow some "pork barrel politics"
- No time limit
- Allows filibusters
- Originally 60 votes "Vote of Closure" stops
- Now simple majority (50)
- No sitting down, leaning on podium
- But multi-person filibusters
- Amendment vote (incl house amendments) and vote on finalized
bill (needs majority)
Conference Committee
- Bipartisan, bicameral Joint Committee
- No compromise, no law
- if passed identically, compromises don't need to happen
- Then has to be passed by house and senate
- Onto the president
Presidential Action
- 10 business days to review legislation
- Sign it --> law
- Veto: requires written reasons
- 2/3 in both chambers override
- No action
- Congress in session = unsigned law
- Congress out of session = pocket veto (bill dies, can be
reintroduced)
The Budget
- In theory, begins 18 months prior to fiscal year (Oct 1-Sep 30)
- HUGE piece of legislation, physically, importance, etc
- Executive budget, comes out in March
- President saying what he wants: taxes, tax cuts, revenues, spend
- First Budget Resolution (meant to be passed middle of May)
- "Congress's rebuttal"
- Second Budget Resolution
- Passed by Sep 30
- Final copy
- Chosen by compromise in congress and with congress and pres.
- Rarely actually passed (in time?)
- Continuing Resolutions
- Temporary funding for a particular time frame
- Originally only 30, 60 days
- Now months, years at a time. De facto final res.
- Recent Budgets
- 09 Budget $3.1T ($3.9T actual w/ fed bailout)
- 10 Budget $3.72T
- 11 Budget $3.83T (record $1.56T deficit)
- 20 Budget $4.79T ($1.083T deficit estimate)
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