The House Legislative Process – A Short Course
“All Legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
(Article I, Section 1, of the US Constitution)
Congress conducts its business by the use of four types of measures: bills, joint resolutions, concurrent resolutions, and simple resolution. Two of these (bills and joint resolutions) are of particular importance to Right to Life efforts.
Bills: A bill is used for most legislative proposals. Laws may be passed for a specific time period, with no time period, or with a delayed date for its operation. Only Congressmen can introduce bills in the House of Representatives, and only Senators may introduce bills in the Senate. All House bills are designated by the letters “H.R.” followed by a number. The “H.R.” signifies “House of Representatives.” All Senate bills are designated by the letter “S.” which signifies the Senate. Bills are given to the President for his approval or veto when passed in identical form by both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Joint Resolutions: Joint resolutions may be introduced both in the House of Representatives or in the Senate. “Joint Resolutions” are identical to “bills” with the one exception that bills may not be used when proposing an Amendment to the US Constitution. That is reserved for Joint Resolutions. When the Congress passes a proposal for a Constitutional Amendment by a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate, it is sent directly to the Administrator of General Services for submission to the individual states for ratification. It is not presented to the President for approval. A joint resolution originating in the House of Representatives is designated “H.J.Res.” followed by its individual number. Joint resolutions become law in the same manner as bills.
Any Member of the House of Representatives may introduce a bill while the House is in session by putting it the “hopper” next to Clerk’s desk on the floor of House of Representatives’ Chamber. The sponsor or sponsors must sign the bill. A proposal for a general law may be co-sponsored by any other House Member. The bill is given a legislative number by the Clerk and the Speaker then refers it to the appropriate legislative committee which has jurisdiction over such matters.
Most of the basic work in passing a law is done in committee. Legislators usually do not like to have a bill be considered by the entire body and have significant amendments added to the bill on the House floor. They want to get it as near right as they can before giving it to the House. This is so because the more amendments that are added, the more it appears that the bill may have unintended consequences or that Members may not have given sufficient thought to what the bill might do if enacted. Bills that have sufficient interest usually are scheduled for hearings. Witnesses are invited to testify or submit testimony for inclusion in the public hearing record. Citizens may ask that their comments be made part of the hearing record. The easiest way to do this is to ask your own Congressman to ask the committee chairman to include your remarks.
After hearings are completed, and if members are still interested in passing the bill, the bill is considered in a committee work session by Members that is called a “mark-up” session. It is here where Members of the committee may offer amendments to the bill, and other committee members vote to accept or reject the amendments. Committee “mark ups” can occur in subcommittees or full legislative committees.
At the end of a “mark up” a final vote is taken on the bill as amended. Subcommittees can recommend the bill be reported, with or without amendments, or tabled, which basically kills the bill. If the committee has added a significant number of amendments, a “clean bill” may be reported to the House which includes all the amendments. If this tactic is adopted, this avoids the Committee of the Whole from having to vote on each committee amendment added after the introduction of the bill.
When a legislative committee votes to report a bill, a Committee Report is written which describes the bill, the problems it was meant to address, and gives the reasons for the bill. There often are references to testimony before the committee which may help other members become familiar with the background of a bill.
Bills usually get to the full House after going through the committee process, although in rare circumstances it may be brought directly to the floor (see “discharge petition”). The Consideration of bills is usually a “rule” which the house must pass establishing the parameters of debate for a particular bill, how much time for debate will be allowed, and whether amendments may be offered, and other parliamentary matters. Proponents and opponents usually receive equal time for debate.
After a bill or joint resolution passes the House, it goes to the Senate for consideration. If the Senate changes any language of the bill, it must be returned to the House which has to vote on agreeing or disagreeing to the Senate added language for concurrence or additional changes. If either the House or Senate refuses to agree, a committee of conference may be appointed by each body to resolve the differences. All differences must be eliminated, and the bill pass both the House and Senate in identical form before it may be sent to the President for his signature or veto. The conference committee which is composed of both House and Senate Members is charged with trying to find a way to eliminate the differences in the separate versions. Like standing legislative committees, conference committees may issue a report detailing their efforts at eliminating differences.
Votes on final passage of a bill or on amendments may be done by a voice vote, or by counting the Members in favor and those opposed, or by a recorded vote in which each Member must publically identify their support or opposition to a particular bill or amendment. A bill that passes the House and Senate in identical is called an “enrolled” bill. After “enrollment” the bill is sent to the President who may sign into law, reject it by a “veto”and return it to Congress, let it become law without his signature, or pocket-veto (kill it) it at the end of a session because time has run out for his signature.