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A Passage of a Bill Through the American and Canadian Governments

Continued from: Passage of a Bill Through American and Canadian Governments: Part 2

The passage of an American Bill Through the Congress

In the American system there are also two ways for the law-child to be born. First, is to be introduced by any member of either House of the Congress. This kind of bill may be sponsored by any number of members of Congress. Second way is to be born as a Presidential bill, which means to be proposed by a member of the president's party who has seniority on the standing committee that will hold hearings on the bill.

The bill is assigned by the presiding officer to the appropriate standing committee immediately after being introduced and read on the floor. The parent committee gives the bill to subcommittees to investigate it purposes and determine its value. Then the law-child goes back to the parent committee. This is normally followed by hearings of the parent committees and subcommittees. This assists congresspersons in collecting information about the bill, which by the end of this stage may be severely different from the original draft.

The Rules Committee schedules the law-child for the second reading once the House of Representative's committee returns it to the legislature. If the bill survives the second reading, which includes debate and voting on the floor of the House, it is engrossed, which means copying its rude draft by printing the amendments in final form. Then the bill is given its third reading.

The third reading is by title only, unless a congressman requests that the bill is read again in full. Then the speaker asks for a vote, during which the bill is either defeated or passed.

All the bills, except the revenue (or money) bills, may be created in either the House or the Senate. All revenue bills are required to originate in the House of Representatives. Once on House passes the bill, it goes to the other House, where it goes through the same procedure. Bills must eventually pass both Houses in exactly the same form before being sent to the president for signing.

The president has three choices of how to react at a bill given to him to sign. First option is to sign it. The second alternative is to defeat the bill. Or the president can decide to put a so-called "pocket veto" on it. He does it neither signing nor by defeating the bill, but ignoring it. This way it automatically becomes a law within 10 days. A question rises: why would a president do something like that? Yet, in case if he is not very fond of an idea of letting the bill pass into law, but does not feel strong enough about it, he may consider the "pocket veto" as an option to show his silent confrontation.

Continued here: Passage of a Bill Through American and Canadian Governments: Part 4