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Some say that all you ever needed to know you learned in kindergarten. One might add, all you ever needed to know about passing legislation you learned from Saturday morning cartoons. During the 1970s I learned a little ditty called “I’m just a bill”—a song about a sad scrap of paper trying to become a law. It was part of the Schoolhouse Rock series of educational cartoons that taught a generation of us about grammar, math, science and America.
This scrap of paper, like every bill, started out as an idea. Advocates of an idea team up with a lawmaker to turn that idea into legislation. The bill’s sponsor introduces the bill; it gets assigned a bill number and gets referred to committees. Now the fun begins!
It’s a long, long wait while I’m sitting in committee
The first committee schedules and holds a hearing, taking public testimony and debating amongst themselves. It’s the lobbyists’ job to garner support from committee members before the hearing. At the hearing, a committee can vote for a do pass, a without recommendation, or a do not pass with a simple majority. Bills receiving a do pass or a without recommendation vote get sent on to the next committee—but not until after the committee has reported its actions to the full House or Senate. A committee can also vote to table a bill. A bill can be temporarily tabled so that amendments can be made and then brought back before the committee. But a bill can also be tabled indefinitely, effectively killing the legislation. This is the most common way bills die.
When a bill gets through the committee process it heads to the floor of the chamber into which it was introduced. The full House or Senate will debate and vote on the legislation. These floor votes are the backbone of legislative scorecards.
…and the whole thing starts all over again!
After a bill passes one legislative body, say the House of Representatives, it must then repeat the entire process in the Senate. Committee referrals are made, hearings held and votes cast. If the bill makes it through it gets sent to the Governor to be signed. However, if the Senate made changed to the bill that passed the House, the bill must go back to the House for concurrence before going to the Governor.
If the Senate has already passed the same language in a Senate bill, the House bill must still go through the full committee process and be voted on by the full Senate. The legislative process wasn’t designed to make it easy to pass laws!
But I know someday I’ll be a law
The governor has options too. He can sign a bill into law, he can veto it, or he can do nothing. If the governor doesn’t sign a bill by his deadline, the bill is dead—it’s called a pocked veto.
If you’ve never heard “I’m just a bill” or if you need a refresher, you can read the lyrics and hear a clip on www.school-house-rock.coml or get a copy of the cartoon from your local video store.
He signed you Bill. Now you’re a Law!
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