Dance of Legislation

A detailed Summary of Dance of Legislation

The 'Dance of Legislation' is what an idea has to go through before it becomes a law. Legislation may be introduced in the House or the Senate, or even in both at the same time. The only exception is when dealing with financial issues, in which case the legislation has to start in the House. An example would be the issue of free tuition. Any member of Congress, voting or non-voting, can introduce any idea into the Congress. Once the idea has been introduced, it has two years to get through the Congress. If it does not succeed within the two years, it has to start all over again. This is due to the two year cycle of the House. On average, around 13,000 ideas are proposed in Congress each year; and of these 13,000 only about 400 actually become law; less than 5%. The House committees are usually made up of around 20 to 50 representatives whilst the Senate committees are made up of 10 to 20 senators. The chairman of any committee is typically the majority-party member who has served the longest on the committee.

The idea that has been submitted is sent to a committee who handles the idea. In the case of free tuition, the idea would be sent to the Education and Labor Committee. From here,

The bill is then hand-delivered by a clerk to the White House for the President's consideration. Once he receives the bill, the President has 10 days to do something about the bill. If he does nothing in those 10 days, the bill automatically becomes law. This of course is assuming that Congress is still in session in Washington. If he does nothing in 10 days and Congress is not in session, then it becomes a pocket veto, and the bill is dead. The President may also decide to veto the bill, objecting completely to the bill and personally killing it or he may perhaps specify specific objections and suggest changes. If he suggests changes, the bill then goes back to the House. The House can override the President's veto by a two-thirds majority vote. If successful, the bill goes to the Senate and the Senate can also override the President's veto by a majority two-thirds vote. If this happens, then the bill will be passed. Throughout history though, only 4% of Presidential vetoes has been overruled. The final option for the President would be to just sign the bill, and thereby making it law.

When the bill reaches the Senate, it has to go through the same process again. The bill is sent to a committee who delegates it to a sub-committee. The sub-committee goes through the three stages of hearing, mark-up and voting. If it fails to get a majority vote, the bill dies. If it passes then it is sent back up to the full committee, and the full committee can repeat the cycle of hearing, mark-up and voting. If it passes the full committee, it is then sent to the floor of the Senate for debate. Unlike the House, there is no time limit to how long a bill can be debated in the Senate. There is also no limit to the number of amendments that can be made to the bill. Once the bill reaches the Senate, any senator can offer any number of amendments on any subject that he/she wi

Some common words found in the essay are:
Labor Committee, Unlike House, House Senate, Education Committee, House President's, Conference Committee, Senate Senate, Speaker Vice-President, House House, majority vote, Legislation MR_JoNES^, fails majority, bill dies, fails majority vote, sent committee, conference committee, bill debated, hearing mark-up, vote bill dies, vote bill, majority vote bill, education labor committee, bill dies passes, mark-up voting, dies passes,

Approximate Word count = 1262
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics