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How a bill becomes a law

Ever wondered how all those laws get made? Forget what you learned in school or Schoolhouse Rock? Well you’ve come to the right place! Here, in brief, is how a Bill Becomes a Law, from the perspective of the House of Representatives:
 
  1. Like anything else in our daily lives, a law has its origin in someone’s mind. A law will first start as an IDEA that the President, a Member of Congress or even your neighbor might have. The great thing about American democracy is that anyone’s idea can be a law!
  2. When a Member of Congress wants to make that idea into a law, he or she will write out what he or she wants the law to do. He or she will then drop this paper description into the “Hopper,” a small, wooden box on the floor of the House.
  3. The description is picked up by the Clerk of the House, and put on a legislative calendar and given a bill number. This description now becomes a BILL, and the Member of Congress then becomes a SPONSOR of that bill.
  4. The sponsor will then speak with his or her colleagues in the House of Representatives to ask them to support the bill and consider becoming co-sponsors. The sponsor will try to convince his or her colleagues to vote for it, by informing them of all the changes he or she thinks it will make. He will also speak about the bill in public, trying to get the American people to convince their respective representatives to support the bill.
  5. A bill is always sent to a committee before it is voted on. For example if a bill has something to do with roads or trains, it will be sent to the Transportation committee, and if it has something to do with farms, it is sent to the Agriculture Committee. The Committee Members then hear from experts and from each other in order to assess the positives and negatives of a bill.
  6. Once they think the bill is ready, the Committee will then vote to move it from committee to the House floor. There, the entire House (435 Members of Congress) can vote on or amend the bill.
  7. If it passes the House by a majority of votes (currently 218) then the bill is sent to the Senate, where they also review and amend it, first in committee then with all 100 Senators on it as a whole. The Senate also needs a majority of votes to pass the bill.
    1. If, because of changes, the Senate or the House pass different versions of the bill, they must meet in a Conference Committee to come to a compromise.
  8. The final version of the bill is sent to the desk of the President for his signature or Veto. If the president signs it, it becomes law. If the President vetos it, the Congress can override the veto by passing it with a two-thirds “super”majority of votes in both the House and Senate.
This is one great example of the checks and balances built into the American legislative system. No one branch of subdivision can single-handedly make a bill become law without the approval of other branches of government