What You Should Know About the Legislative Process

One should read more now and understand the way government works as it’s the first step towards making positive changes. There are thousands of bills that get introduced to Congress each year view here for more. The fact that these bills have a detrimental impact requires to know more about them. There is much need to learn more about these five facts as it gives an insight about the US legislative system check it out!

Legislative branch has two houses. The first one is the House of Representatives and the second one is the Senate. Such split was brought about by the Great Compromise of 1787 that attempted to resolve issues of representation for states with large population vs. those states having smaller ones. The members in the House of Representatives are elected after every two hours. In this case the number of representatives in each state is however determined by the population level but each state is guaranteed to have at least one representative regardless of its population size. There is election every six years of the members on the Senate. There can be no change based on state population.

Next is lawmaking process. There tend to be a legal process of drafting new laws and begins when a member of Congress introduces a bill. As from this website, a bill is a law proposed by someone in the House or representatives or Senate. Its after the bill is introduced that it goes to the committees for consideration. Approving or rejecting the bill are the options here. Rejecting it means it will not go further. The members of the Congress debate and vote on it after approval. The bill goes to the President. In here the President can either sign the bill into law or veto it which failure to such options within three days, the bill now becomes law automatically.

Filibuster. Its good to click on this page to learn about the tactic used by lawmaker to delay drafting new laws. Senators delay the voting of a bill by speaking about it for more time. Given that the Senate rules says that any senator can talk about a bill for as long as they want unless three-fifth of the senate votes to end the debate, it means that filibuster can be used to delay and prevent a bill from being voted. There are considerable debates about reforming or removing filibuster but its unlikely that it will change in the future.

Next is conference committees. The committee plays a crucial role by resolving differences between the Senate and the House. Passing different versions of a bill by the House and the Senate calls for the conference committee to discuss the differences. The committee therefore makes significant changes to the bill or negotiates new provisions. Completion of the new bill version it’s then voted for and goes to the President.

The last one is the Presidential veto. Presidents tend not to have ability to make new laws without working with Congress. This bill is signed, ignored or vetoed by the President within ten days.