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The Idea
The first step in making a law is creating a bill that you wish to turn into a law. This involves finding a problem and creating a solution in the form of a bill. For example assuming you were a congressmen, you notice that your state has some beautiful land that you want to turn into a national park. This is your bill that you are going to take through the process of becoming a law. -
Fine tuning of the Bill
This bill that you are proposing is going to go through a lot of scrutiny and editing so it is best if you write your bill and then rewrite to make sure that you it is grammatically correct, says what you want to happen, and has the necessary clauses and statements. After you have made sure that this bill is written perfectly you then must submit it to a committee which is a group of congressmen who are experts in this particular field. The committee will decide if your bill will get voted on. -
The Committee
In the committee the bill is studied by the members of committee. The committee will hold hearings to gather other opinions on the bill and after adding any clauses or amendments they will hold a final vote on whether or not to allow the bill to progress into to the house to be voted on. Bills can start in the house or the senate but since you are in the House of Representatives your bill starts in the house. If the committee chooses not to send it to the house the bill is effectively dead. -
The Rule Committee
After passing the committee your bill then goes to the rule committee which decides the amount of debate time your bill will have, when your bill will presented to the house, and all of the scheduling issues that may come forth. Basically this committee organizes your bill’s journey through the house. -
The House
Finally your bill makes it to the house floor to be debated. Depending on what the Rules committee decided your bill will be debated for a certain amount of time and then finally voted on by the house. If it passed in the house it will be sent to the senate where it will go through the same process as in the house just with a few changes. After debating for 3 hours about whether or not to create a national park your bill is voted on and passed with a majority of the house members. -
The Senate
Once the bill passes in the senate the senate then assigns the bill to a senate committee where just like in the house it gets debated on and then ultimately it is decided by the committee whether or not to allow it through onto the senate floor for debate. The committee is usually specialized and this particular bill about national parks likely went to the committee that deals with nature and conservation. After debating on the bill for a while the committee holds a final vote, the bill passes -
The Senate floor
After being allowed through to the senate an amount of time and a date is set for the bill to be discussed. If this bill passes it will be on the home stretch to becoming a law. As the bill is being debated different sides stand up to argue for or against this bill but in the end it seems as though a clear majority of the senate is in favor of the bill. The final vote is cast and your bill passes in the senate with a majority. -
Conference committee
Once both of the houses have passed your bill a conference committee meets made up of both house members and senate members meets to combine both of their bills into one. Both committees in the senate and the house made slight changes to the bill and so this committee tries to combine those two bills into something that both houses can agree upon. After writing and rewriting your bill the committee members agree upon a final version and vote on it. Your bill passes. -
The president
Now comes one of the most nerve racking steps of this entire process. The president can either sign the bill, veto the bill, or leave it unsigned for 10 days. Two out of these three things kills the bill. Your bill sits on his desk for a few days while the president decides whether or not to sign it. Luckily for you the president is from your state and knows about a lot about this specific land. He signs your bill and it goes into effect. It is now a law. -
What if?
As you can see a bill’s journey through congress is a long and painful one and can be stopped by a lot of different things. The committees can vote against it or just not vote on it. The houses can vote against it. The president can not sign it or veto it. If the president decided to veto it congress can override that veto by 2/3’s majority in both houses. This may seem easy to do but in reality it has only been done once or twice. Luckily for you your bill is now a law.