Networks Guided Reading the Legislative Branch Answers
Learning Objectives
Later reading this section, you should be able to answer the post-obit questions:
- How does a bill become law?
- How exercise members of Congress develop and draft legislation?
- How does the congressional budget process piece of work?
The primary responsibility of Congress is making laws. Code is no easy task. Political scientists take characterized Congress every bit "a procedural obstacle course that favors opponents of legislation and hinders proponents." [1] It often takes years earlier a bill is passed. Simply a small-scale number of bills that are introduced, formally proposed by members of the House and Senate, become law. On boilerplate, close to eleven thousand bills are introduced in the House and Senate during a two-yr legislative session and fewer than 4 hundred get laws. [ii]
The process of making laws involves complex written rules and procedures, some of which date back to 1797, when Vice President Thomas Jefferson prepared a rule volume to assist him deport out his responsibilities as president of the Senate. Jefferson's Manual was adopted by the House and remains the authoritative argument of rules except where it has been superseded past provisions passed by members. In add-on, there are fifteen volumes of parliamentary procedures and supplementary manuals of notes specifying current rules that pertain to code in the House. Similar reams of codes exist in the Senate. [three]
Making Laws
The textbook legislative process begins when a fellow member of the House or Senate introduces a bill, which so is referred to appropriate committees within each body. Committees decide whether or not a bill is recommended for floor activity, where it volition be debated and voted on. The House and Senate must pass identical versions of a nib earlier it can be sent to the president to be signed into law.
Video Clip: Schoolhouse Rock—How a Neb Becomes a Law
Figure 1. How a Bill Becomes a Police
Source: Adapted from http://www.cybertelecom.org/images/howlaw.gif.
Few bills are passed via the organized, step-by-stride, textbook process. Since the 1970s, "unorthodox lawmaking" has become the norm. Most bills wend their way through a circuitous path filled with political and procedural roadblocks. [4]Individual members, especially those seeking reelection, counterbalance in on bills, resulting in an oft contentious atmosphere for lawmaking.
Developing Legislation
Members develop ideas for legislation from myriad sources. Most often, proposals stem from campaign promises and issues germane to members' districts brought to their attending by constituents and lobbying groups. [five] Senator Warren Magnuson (D-WA) initiated a spate of legislation that led to the establishment of the Consumer Product Rubber Commission in the 1970s later on being shown an Ten ray of shrapnel embedded in a constituent's skull resulting from an accident involving a power lawn mower. [6] Political parties may encourage members to develop legislative initiatives that back up their agendas. Members may see a demand to revise or repeal an existing law. They also tin exist motivated by personal experiences. The belatedly Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), in an activity that contradicted his fierce opposition to government regulation, sponsored a bill requiring warnings about the dangers of alcohol in all advert later his daughter was killed by a boozer commuter. [7] National emergencies tin can prompt members to take activity. Congress enacted the Homeland Security Deed of 2002 in the aftermath of the ix/11 terrorist attacks on America. This human action created the Section of Homeland Security, a new government bureau for emergency preparedness.
Legislation tin can originate equally a result of executive communication, a bulletin or letter from the president, a chiffonier fellow member, or an agency head to the Speaker of the Business firm or president of the Senate recommending that Congress address a policy or budgetary issue. These requests ofttimes follow the president's State of the Union accost. Presidents too can make their agendas known to Congress by making speeches that are publicized through the media. Executive communications are referred to advisable congressional committees, which decide whether or not to act on them. The president uses an executive communication to submit his proposed budget to the House Committee on Appropriations, which uses it every bit a basis for drafting federal funding legislation. [8]
Every yr, the docket—the schedule outlining Congress's workload—accommodates a significant amount of legislation that is required to keep existing programs and services going. Most required legislation takes the form of authorization bills, which establish a suggested level of funding for a programme, and appropriations bills, which actually provide the money for a section or agency to run the program. [nine]
Drafting Legislation
If information technology is to have much chance of becoming constabulary, a bill must be drafted into a proposal that will generate support in Congress likewise every bit among the public, interest groups, and the executive branch. Bills are drafted by members with the assistance of their staffs and experts in the House and Senate legislative counsel offices.
A bill's language tin can exist instrumental in generating media publicity and afterwards support for or opposition to it. The title can position the bill in the public debate, as it captures the ideas and images proponents wish to convey. Megan'south Law, which requires communities to publicize the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders, is named afterward Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl who was murdered past a sex offender after his release from prison house. Politically charged shorthand ofttimes is used to characterize bills. The health-care reform legislation passed past Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010 has been labeled "Obamacare" by opponents seeking to repeal the legislation.
Introducing Legislation
Members from either the Firm or Senate can innovate legislation. The member who introduces a bill is its sponsor. Other members tin sign on as cosponsors, or supporters, of the beak. Having a large number of cosponsors or having congressional leaders sign onto a bill can heave its chances of success.
Bills are the about typical class of legislation. They tin can originate in either the Business firm or Senate, with the exception of bills for raising revenue, which must exist initiated in the House. [ten] The same bill must laissez passer through all the formal procedural hurdles in the House and Senate before it tin be sent to the president to be signed into law.
Members of the House or Senate introduce bills and open the floor to contend.
Committee Consideration
After a beak is introduced, information technology is referred to the continuing committee having jurisdiction over its subject matter, such as free energy or homeland security, by the presiding officers in each sleeping room. Having a bill referred to a friendly committee is a key to its potential for success. In the House, but not the Senate, a bill may be considered by more one commission. [xi] Committees in both chambers frequently pass a pecker on to a subcommittee that deals with a specialized area of policy contained in the legislation. As more people piece of work on a neb, the less likely it is they volition reach consensus and that the bill will movement beyond the committee phase. [12]
Committees sometimes asking input about a beak from government departments and agencies and concur public hearings where expert witnesses show. When members seek media coverage of committee hearings, they sometimes volition bring in celebrities every bit witnesses. In 2010, comedian Stephen Colbert testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee in lodge to bring attending to clearing reform and treatment of farm workers. The performance received mixed reviews from both members of Congress and political commentators.
The full committee votes to determine if the bill will be reported, meaning it volition be sent to the floor for argue. If the vote is successful, the committee holds a mark-up session to revise the bill. The committee prepares a report documenting why information technology supports the bill. The written report is sent to the whole chamber, and the neb is placed on the calendar to expect floor debate.
In the Business firm, bills must go the Rules Committee before reaching the flooring. The Rules Commission assigns a pecker a rule that sets the procedures nether which the bill will be considered on the floor. The dominion establishes the parameters of debate and specifies if amendments, proposed changes to the bill, will be permitted or not. A beak can become stalled if the Rules Committee does not assign it a rule at all or in a timely manner. Rules must be approved by a bulk of the members of the House earlier floor action can begin. There is no Rules Committee in the Senate, where the process of bringing a bill to the floor is simpler and less formal. The Senate majority leader makes a move to keep with flooring debate.
Floor Action
Once a pecker reaches the House or Senate floor, information technology is debated, amended, and voted on. Many of the bills that make information technology to the floor are modest bills—noncontroversial measures that have symbolic value, such equally naming a post office. [13]Floor consideration of most small-scale bills is brief, and they are approved by voice vote. Major bills focusing on divisive issues, such as budgetary proposals, health care, and national security, volition prompt lengthy contend and amendment proposals before coming to a vote. A bill dies if either chamber fails to laissez passer it.
In the House, bills are considered by the full Business firm meeting in the chamber, which is referred to as the Committee of the Whole. The Speaker of the Business firm chooses a chairperson to oversee floor activity. Speakers for and confronting the bill have an equal amount of time. A full general contend of the bill is followed by argue of amendments. A quorum of 218 members is required for a vote on the bill. Yeas and nays are recorded using a computerized system.
Senate flooring activity is less structured and more unpredictable than the House procedure. Senators are free to speak equally long equally they like. The filibuster can be used by practiced senators to defeat a bill past "talking it to expiry." To avoid lengthy and unproductive flooring sessions, the Senate can employunanimous consent agreements, negotiated agreements that gear up fourth dimension limitations on fence. [xiv] Debate also can be restricted if three-fifths of the senators vote to invokecloture, a motion to limit consideration of a nib. Getting sixty senators to agree to close debate is non easy, especially on controversial issues. Senators vote on the bill using a traditional call of the gyre, with each voice vote recorded manually.
Conference Committee
If House and Senate versions of a bill are non the aforementioned, a briefing commission is formed to piece of work out the differences. Briefing committees consist of members of both houses. In 1934, Senator George Norris (R-NE) characterized conference committees as the "tertiary house of Congress" considering of the power they wield in the legislative process. [15] They are the last places in which big changes in legislation can be made. Major changes in the provisions and linguistic communication of bills are negotiated in conference committees. Upward to 80 percentage of important bills during a session of Congress end upward in conference committees. [16]
During conference committee negotiations, conferees meet informally with political party leaders and members who take an interest in the neb. Representatives of the executive branch work with conferees to devise a final neb that the president will be likely to sign. Once an agreement has been reached, the conference committee issues a written report that must be passed past the Firm and Senate before the neb moves forward to be signed into law past the president. [17]
Presidential Approval
Subsequently passing through both houses of Congress, a bill does non become a law until it is signed by the president.
A bill becomes constabulary when it is signed by the president. A president canveto, or reject, a bill by sending information technology back to Congress with a memorandum indicating his objections. Congress tin can override a veto with a two-thirds vote in each bedchamber, enabling the neb to become a law over the president's objections. [18]
The Budget Procedure
One of the most arduous tasks faced by Congress is passing legislation authorizing the nation'south annual budget. House and Senate members, their staffs, and congressional committees in conjunction with the president and the executive branch are responsible for preparing the budget. The president submits a detailed budget proposal to Congress, which serves equally a starting point. The House and Senate Budget Committees concur hearings on the budget to become communication virtually how funds should exist spent.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Function (CBO) with a staff of over 230 economists and policy analysts, provides expert budgetary advice to Congress. It reviews the president'south budget plan, projects the actual costs of budget items, and develops options for changes in taxing and spending. CBO staffers set up detailed reports on the budget and show before Congress. [19]
A ii-stride dominance and appropriations procedure is required to institute and fund specific programs inside the guidelines set by the almanac budget. Congress must start pass laws authorizing or recommending that federal programs receive funding at a particular level. The appropriations process, where funds are really allocated to programs for spending, is the 2nd footstep. The House Appropriations Committee initiates all bills to fund programs, and its counterpart in the Senate must corroborate funding bills. The upkeep resolution that ultimately passes the House and Senate Budget Committees is usually markedly different from the president's budget proposal.
The budget process rarely goes smoothly. The procedure tin stall, as was the instance in 2011 when the inability of Congress to attain an agreement on the budget threatened to result in a regime shutdown. Media coverage highlighting partisan bickering over what to fund and what to cut from the budget added to the drama surrounding the budget process.
C-SPAN
Members of the public can follow congressional action live on goggle box. Later much argue, televised coverage of floor proceedings via the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) was established in the House in 1979 and in the Senate in 1986. C-SPAN transmits gavel-to-gavel coverage of flooring action. It covers committee hearings and broadcasts educational panels and events.
C-Span affirmed Congress as a media-witting establishment. [xx] A meridian Rules Committee staffer explained that Congress had tired of losing the battle with the president for media attention: "President Richard Nixon was dominating the airwaves with defenses of his Vietnam State of war policies, while Congressional opponents were not being given equal admission by the networks." [21]
C-Span's cameras show Congress at its best and worst, at its most dramatic and most mundane. They showcase members' elegant flooring speeches and capture them joking and looking bored during hearings. C-SPAN is monitored continuously in most congressional offices and is a source of information and images for other mass media.
C-Span has expanded its operation beyond cablevision telly and provides extensive radio and online coverage of Congress, the White House, and national politics. In addition to alive streams of television and radio feeds from Capitol Hill, the C-SPAN website includes news stories, stance pieces, history, educational materials, and event coverage.
Link: C-SPAN's Channel on YouTube
People can follow C-SPAN via Twitter, Facebook, and Square. C-Span has its own YouTube channel here that hosts an extensive political video library.
Link: C-SPAN Bus
The C-SPAN motorbus travels the country, providing information about public affairs to communities and gathering local stories that they publicize online.
C-Span has expanded across its original television coverage of Congress to provide information about authorities and politics through a range of media.
Primal Takeaways
Making laws is a complex process guided past volumes of rules and influenced by politics. While many bills are proposed each congressional session, few make it all the way through the process to be signed by the president and made law. Congress is responsible for passing legislation enacting the nation's almanac upkeep, which is frequently a difficult task. The activities of Congress are reported past C-SPAN, which began every bit a cable network providing gavel-to-gavel coverage of floor proceedings and has expanded to go an extensive resources for information nearly regime and politics.
Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-amgovernment/chapter/reading-the-legislative-process/
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