YOUR TASK:• What are these different types

of bills and resolutions?• What are the

similarities/differences between them?

• Write your own definition for each type of bill/resolution.

• Compare it with your partner’s – can you both agree on a definition?

Enquiry Question: How is legislation passed?

Learning Outcomes

• To describe the legislative process

• To explain the complexities of the legislative process and the factors that can affect it, including partisanship and bipartisanship

• To evaluate the extent to which the filibuster is still a useful legislative tool

Watch the video: School House Rock – I’m Just A Bill

Watch the video: Crash Course – How a Bill Becomes Law

Legislative Process

YOUR TASK:Read the article “Legislative Process”Create a ‘Draw My Life’ style summary page.Ensure that your summary answers the following questions:• How does a bill become law?• How do members of Congress develop and draft

legislation?• How does the congressional budget process work?• Who can introduce legislation? What are the various

different stages at which bills face votes as they move through Congress?

• What are the two steps of the budget process? Which committee has the power to initiate funding bills?

7 Stages of the Legislative Process

First Reading

• must pass both houses during a congress (2 years)

• Same in both houses, only a formality

• No debate

• No vote

• Speaker assigns legislature to appropriate committee

Committee Stage

• Committee stage-broken into sub-committees

• Many bills don’t get out-pigeonholed

• Bills with lots of support get heard-from within house, congress, interest groups etc,

• Committee members are specialists

• Witnesses called and questioned

• Power of amendment-can pass, amend or reject

• Reported out i.e. Goes to floor if vote in favour

• Therefore bill can be thrown out at this stage. Slow process because of witness.

Timetabling

• Find time for consideration whole chamber

• House rules committee-2:1 in favour of majority

• Can set time limits & rules for level of debate

• Therefore control what pases v powerful

Second Reading

• Considered by whole chamber

• Further amendments made

• In senate-tradition- everyone who wants to speak can-therefore chance of filibuster

• 60 senators must vote for cloture-motion to stop debate allowing determined minorities to end a bill

• Simple majority pass

• If passed said to be congressed.

Third Reading

• Final debate.

• If big amendments made after 2nd

reading-substantial debate

• If minor amendments and large vote in favour, 3rd reading brief-further vote taken

Conference Committee

• (optional)

• If big difference between bill agreed by house & senate due to amendments a conference committee called-reps from both chambers represented.

• If bill not approved by end of congressional term, 2 years, must start all over again.

Presidential Action

• 4 options

• 10 days to act

• Signed into law

• Can veto bill

• However veto can be overridden by 2/3 majority

• Pocket veto, takes no action at end of congress, bill dies-cannot be overturned

• Leave bill on desk-become law after 10 working days

Learning Outcomes

• To describe the legislative process

• To explain the complexities of the legislative process and the factors that can affect it, including partisanship and bipartisanship

• To evaluate the extent to which the filibuster is still a useful legislative tool

Weak Parties & Weak Leaders• Due to the separation of powers and federalism,

parties tend to be weak, with many factions. • Party leaders also have limited power over their own

party, with ineffective patronage and whipping. • As a result, parties do not act as a single unit in

passing legislation, making it difficult to pass laws. • The rise in partisanship can help the passage of

legislation through Congress, but this is of little use if the presidency is controlled by a different party or the House and Senate have split control (as in 2010–14).

• Here partisanship can cause high levels of gridlock, where president, House and Senate fail to agree and legislation cannot be passed.

Why is the legislative process difficult?

Increased partisanship• The Republican Party was criticised for excessive

partisanship during the Obama presidency, with some politicians seeming to oppose any policy supported by Obama.

• For example, the then-House Budget Committee Chair Tom Price refused to begin committee consideration of Obama’s final $4-trillion-budget proposal.

• Voting between parties has become more divergent than at any other period since the Second World War.

• In addition, the political middle has disappeared, with declines in moderate conservatives and Blue Dog Democrats, who represent a crossover between the two parties.

Why is the legislative process difficult?

http://www.mamartino.com/projects/rise_of_partisanship/

• There is certain degree of negativity that is part of the obstructionist's platform.

• Republicans, and some moderates of both parties, are not progressive.

• They want things to remain the same, even when it becomes out-dated.

• They look at new ideas with a preconceived idea that it will fail.

We don’t like change

Why is the legislative process difficult?

• This means that controversial bills will require some negotiations to get passed.

• Controversial legislation typically won't pass unless it's sponsored by the majority party, and even then weak links can be found to vote against the bill.

• The weak party discipline in the congressional system often means members of the party have little to gain from voting along party lines, and would rather follow their own personal opinions or those of their constituents.

Controversial Bill? Forget it!

Why is the legislative process difficult?

• The legislative process bestows power on the committee system, allowing a committee to simply “table” a bill.

• Tabling a bill/piece of legislation means that it is set aside for later consideration.

• Whether or not it is "dead" depends upon how many people in the legislature want it considered later, how much other legislation is under consideration - and how much pressure they can bring to bear on the committee chair(s) to bring the tabled item up for active consideration.

“A Committee is a group of people who individually

can do nothing, but as a group decide

that nothing can be done.”

– Fred AllenAmerican

Comedian, 1894-1956

Political Action-less Committees

Why is the legislative process difficult?

• The presidential veto allows the president to return legislation to Congress unsigned.

• Congress can only override this veto with a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress –something that is difficult to achieve, especially if the bill is considered to be partisan or controversial.

Presidential Veto

Why is the legislative process difficult?

• The filibuster allows the minority in the Senate to delay or defeat (potentially) any piece legislation.

• Sometimes the threat of a filibuster can force a small majority to negotiate further with the minority.

“Over my dead body….blah blahblah…Never in a

million years…blah blah

blah…..”

Filibuster

Why is the legislative process difficult?

• If a party has a majority in both houses of Congress, then in theory they will be able to pass most of their party platform legislation (providing there is nothing too controversial).

• How easy it is to pass legislation is (normally) proportionate to the size of the majority.

• But what about divided government?

Year S H

1981-1983 R D

1983-1985 R D

1985-1987 R D

1987-1989 D D

1989-1991 D D

1991-1993 D D

1993–1995 D D

1995-1997 R R

1997-1999 R R

1999-2001 R R

2001-2003 D/R R

2003–2005 R R

2005–2007 R R

2007-2009 D D

2009–2011 D D

2011-2013 D R

Majority Rules

Why is the legislative process difficult?

• In both chambers, party leaders involve themselves in the legislative process on major legislation earlier and more deeply, using special procedures to aid the passage of legislation.

• In the House, special rules from the Rules Committee have become powerful tools for controlling floor consideration of bills and sometimes for shaping the outcomes of votes.

• Often party leaders from each chamber negotiate among themselves instead of creating conference committees. Party leaders also use omnibus legislation that addresses numerous and perhaps unrelated subjects, issues, and programs to create winning coalitions.

NB: In the Senate, leaders have less leverage and individual senators have retained great opportunities for influence. As a result, it is often more difficult to pass legislation in the Senate.

“If I lead will you follow?”

Why is the legislative process difficult?

• Presidents are partners with Congress in the legislative process, but all presidents are also Congress' adversaries in the struggle to control legislative outcomes. Presidents have their own legislative agenda, based in part on their party's platform and their electoral coalition. The president's task is to persuade Congress that his agenda should also be Congress' agenda.

• Presidential success rates for influencing congressional votes vary widely among presidents and within a president's tenure in office. Presidents are usually most successful early in their tenures and when their party has a majority in one or both houses of Congress. Regardless, in almost any year, the president will lose on many issues.

What the President wants…the President gets.

Why is the legislative process difficult?

Key Points

• 3% of bills are vetoed by presidents• 4% of vetoes overridden-often for

political reasons-in divided government mostly (except carter)

• Very few bills put forward become law- 4-5% Why?

• Weak party discipline-votes not predictable

• Committees can kill off /fundamentally change a bill

• Cloture motion requirement in senate means minorities can kill bills-

• Senate very powerful.

Intention of FF- supposed to be difficult-pros & cons

CLOTURE MOTION(Closure/guillotine)

• The only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster.

• Under the cloture rule the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes.

Why is the legislative process difficult?

‘The house sits, not for serious discussion, but to sanction the conclusions of its committees as

rapidly as possible. It legislates in its committee rooms, not by the determination of majorities, but

by the specially commissioned minorities (the committees), so that it is not far from the truth to say that congress in session is congress on public exhibition, whilst congress in its committee rooms

is congress at work’.

Woodrow Wilson 1885 future president WWI.

Quote of the Day

Strengths of legislative process Weaknesses of legislative process

• Checks and balances prevent tyranny, forcing compromise between different interests. In this sense the United States creates a pluralist democracy in which power is shared.

• Quality policy comes from detailed consideration of bills and filters to remove undesirable aspects. This limits the danger of a bill being poorly thought-through.

• Individual and state rights are protected, as Senators can insert amendments or filibuster on the basis of their equal state power and interests.

• Inefficiency/low output results from the excessive need to compromise. Congress cannot act quickly and often fails to agree on legislation to address key needs.

• High levels of partisanship mean parties are unwilling to compromise, leading to more gridlock. The Constitution requires compromise for laws to be passed.

• Poor-quality legislation can come from too much compromise. A bill may lack coherence due to many amendments and interests. Prevalent pork-barrelling can create financially wasteful policy not based on rational decisions.

Learning Outcomes

• To describe the legislative process

• To explain the complexities of the legislative process and the factors that can affect it, including partisanship and bipartisanship

• To evaluate the extent to which the filibuster is still a useful legislative tool

What is a filibuster?• In the Senate, unlike the House, no time limits are set on the

speeches made for or against a bill. It comes from the Spanish word filibustro, which used to describe a pirate.

• The words has come to mean anyone acting in an irregular manner. A filibuster takes place in the Senate when a member on the minority side tries to get a bill changed or killed by talking for so long that the majority group gets fed up and concedes.

• In the Senate, it is against the rules for a member of the majority to end a debate in order to vote. It is generally the case that no vote can take place if any Senator still wants to speak.

• Strom Thurmond, who talked non-stop for over 24 hours in 1957, held the record in Congress.

Watch the video clip: History of the Filibuster

What is a filibuster?• To end a filibuster, Senators can invoke what is known as a

cloture (a call for a vote), where three fifths (60) must vote, or in certain circumstances two thirds of those present.

• This can’t happen, however, until two days after the cloture has been proposed and signed by 16 senators.

• Even after cloture, there are still 30 more hours allowed, during which time Senators can speak for no more than an hour. In the event, this procedure is used less than one might suppose.

• During the presidency of George W Bush the Democrats used the filibuster to such effect that the Republicans considered changing the rules to make the process more difficult to achieve. The Democrats lost their ‘supermajority’ of 60 not long before the 2010 midterms and this made their position far more difficult.

An example of a filibuster in a State

Senate

Wendy Davis on Abortion Rights

Famous Filibusters

Learning Outcomes

• To describe the legislative process

• To explain the complexities of the legislative process and the factors that can affect it, including partisanship and bipartisanship

• To evaluate the extent to which the filibuster is still a useful legislative tool

Why do only a small percentage of bills introduced into Congress

become laws? (15)

Why do only a small percentage of bills introduced into Congress become laws?

The reasons only a small percentage of bills introduced into Congress become laws include:

• the Senate and House are equal in legislative power and neither can impose its will on the other

• the relationship between them is likely to be particularly strained if they are under the control of different parties

• Congressmen and senators are resistant to centralised leadership and their support for legislation will depend on their perception of its electoral benefit to themselves

• there are multiple blocking points in the legislative process in each house, as well as a conference committee at the end of the process

• the president has the power of veto which it is difficult for Congress to override

PLENARY: How can a filibuster be used to force a vote rather than stop one?

Watch video clip 1 Watch video clip 2

Homework

Application Task:

Why do only a small percentage of bills introduced into Congress become laws? (15)

Flipped Learning Preparation Task:

Functions of Congress: Oversight (Pearson p353-355)

Stretch & Challenge Task

Article: Why the GOP might kill off the filibuster