The Legislative Process

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The Legislative Process

7 stages:

1st reading, committee stage, timetabling, 2nd reading, third reading, conference comm (optional), presidential action.

To be successful, bills must pass through stages 1-5 and 7. The process must be completed during Cong (2 yrs), so is started again at the beginning of the next Cong.

First reading -> No debate/vote. Bill is placed in a 'hopper' - a tray - on the clerk's desk. In the Senate, the 1st reading involves reading out the title of the bill on the Senate floor. Bills are numbered, printed, circulated and sent on to the appropriate standing comm. Anything b/w 10k - 14k bills are introduced in a typical Cong and only 2-4% actually make it into law. The 112th Cong ('11-12) was least productive in terms of legislation of any Cong, w/only 238 of the 10,417 bills introduced becoming law.

Committee stage -> most important stage, where most bills fail. Hundreds of bills are referred to each of that standing comms in both chambers in each Cong. Signif number are pigeon-holed w/no action/hearings/vote taken. Those w/a lot of support e.g. interest groups are given hearings which may be in the full comm or relevant sub-comm. V early in the leg process - before the 2nd reading, the full House and Senate haven't yet debated the bill.

The standing comm members are regarded as policy specialists and have full power of amendment - anything can be added to and anything removed from bill at this stage. Once hearings completed, the comm holds a mark-up session - making the changes it wishes - before reporting out the bill, effectively sending it on to its next stage.

The report written by the comm states the main aims of the bill, reviews amendments made by the comm, estimates cost of implementation, recommends future action to be taken by the full chamber.

Timetabling -> A legislative traffic jam develops, bills queue for their turn on the House and Senate floors and each house has its own procedure for dealing w/ this potential problem.

Senate deals w/ it - 'unanimous consent agreements' - agreement b/w the Senate maj and min leaders on order the bills will be debated on the Senate floor.

HoR - deals w/it through the HRC. The 'prioritising' role of the HRC makes it a leg 'gatekeeper' or 'traffic cop' allowing some bills through but holding others back. House members may resort to the discharge process if the HRC fails to give a rule to a popular bill. Discharge bill must be signed by an absolute majority of House members - 218. Bill then 'discharged' from the HRC and comes to House floor for debate... used successfully in 2001-2002 on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

Presidential veto: Power in Article II of the Const, he may return a bill to Cong unsigned, along with the reasons for his objection. Cong may override a presidential veto by a 2/3 majority vote in both houses.

Second reading

First opp for full chambers to debate the bill.

House - most debated at teh 2nd reading in the 'Comm of the Whole House', allows for as many members to take part as possible. In both houses, further amendments can usually be made. Votes are taken on amendments and on whole bill @ end of the debate. Simple majorities are required. Votes can be either by 'voice vote' (mostly for controversial bills) or 'recorded vote' (a record of each member's vote is made). House - electronically; senate by a roll call vote with clerk alphabetically calling the roll of the 100 senators, currently from Mr Alexander (rep), Tennessee.

Senate - possibility of a filibuster: a device by which an individual senator or group of senators, can attempt to talk a bill to death by using delaying tactics. It derives from senators' right of unlimited debate. A 3/5 vote is required to end a filibuster (60 votes).

- Stamina's more important than relevance in this case; extracts read from Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bible lmao.

- 1957, Strom Thurmond - fili against civil rights bill - 24 hrs.

- 2010, bernie sanders, fili against tax deal which obama was trying to work out w/congressional Republicans. 8 1/2 hrs.

- Group - July 2007 - group of Repz filibustered 2008 Depense Appropriations Bill, demand for Bush to withdraw American troops from Iraq.

- Fili ended by a procedure 'closure' - a closure petition must be signed by 16 senators and voted by 3/5 of entire Senate. Until 1970s, filibusters and cloture motions were uncommon.

- 110th Cong ('07-08) had a record of 139 cloture motions, figures fell slightly in next two congs.

- Maj Leader Harry Reid and Min Leader Mitch McConnell - deal in Jan 2013 to try to limit the use of filibusters but unlikely to have much signif effect.

Third reading

Final debating opportunity. 3rd reading likely to occur weeks or months later and would require another substantial debate if in the 2nd reading the final vote was close. However, it would follow on almost immediately after 2nd reading (and be short) if the vote showed a subst. maj in favour. @ end of 3rd reading, a further vote is taken.

Conference committee

Reconcile differences. 103rd Cong ('93-94), around 1/3 of bills that needed reconciling were reconciled in conference comms. Nowadays, mostly just resolved by maj party leadership. 110th cong ('07-08), 1 in 10 bills that needed rec were recced in a cc.

This decline began in 1995 - the Repz began to use a more ad hoc, leadership-driven approach whereby one chamber was simply asked to endorse the leg passed by the other chamber. 'pingponging' - where one bill from one chamber is offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis to the other chamber w/a bill being sent back and force across the Capitol -> to reduce input from min party members and increase partisanship in Cong.

The n.o of ccs convened declined in 1993-94... many senior members of Cong decry the move away from ccs.

Process of cc wasn't used in passing of Obama's hc reforms in 2009-10 - diff versions were passed back and forth b/w the two chambers. Bill's ready to be sent to the pres once it has been agreed by both houses.

Presidential action

3, sometimes 4 options on what to do with a bill.

1. may sign bill into law - will wish to claim some credit and fully supports e.g. March 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Day Care Act. Bill-signing ceremony's arranged at the White House (usually) where key House and Senate members who have supported the bill through its passage - photo w/ president - credit claiming and political thank-yous. Pres may decide to sign bills out of political expediency - March 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

2. 'Leave the bill on his desk' - he takes no position or would like to veto but knows his veto would be overridden - these bills become law w/out his signature in 10 working days.

3. Veto the bill using a regular veto - strongly opposes. Can use as a bargaining tool w/Congress. Pres hopes the threat of the veto will cause Cong to make changes. Must act within 10 congressional days of receiving it to veto the bill, sending it back to its house of origin with a message explaining his objections and must veto whole bill not just parts of it.

Cong has 3 options. Can put right the 'wrongs' identified by the pres in his veto message and return bill for his signature: unlikely. OR can override the veto - 2/3 maj. OR don't have votes to override the veto so do nothing (most likely option).

2007 - Bush's first veto override - Water Resource Development Bill, 3 more vetoes in 2008, leaving him w/lowest success score on vetoes of any modern-day pres at 64%. Bush's total of 11 regular vetoes in 8 years was lowest for a president serving two full terms since Andrew Jackson.

Obama - 93% success rate - pres only needs 34 supporters in the Senate to win. The pres will study the final passage votes of bills. If they've passed by huge majorities in both houses at the 3rd reading or on the conference report, he will rarely veto.

'Pocket veto' - can't be overridden by Cong. George Bush used in December 2007 when he killed the National Defense Authorisation Bill - Cong later passed the bill again in a slightly amended form and the Pres signed into law.

Line-item veto - gave pres power to veto sections, or 'items' within a bill while signing the remainder of the bill into law - enhanced the president's power over legislation. Line Item Veto Bill passed by the HoR and by Senate in March 1996.