How are laws created in the United States? Laws play an essential role in the American justice system and help maintain a sense of order in place. Understanding the interesting path a bill must go through in order to become a law is not only fun, but can help you understand more about the world of American law-making.
One of the beauties of the American law-making system is that almost anyone can propose a bill or an idea for a law. It is also important to note that the creation of a law can occur differently and that there are different ways to go about it. A bill can be introduced to the United States Senate first or it can be introduced to the United State House of Representatives first. Regardless of which place the bill is presented to first, it will eventually have to pass through both with a majority vote in order to continue its path to becoming a law.
Both the House of Representatives and the Senate have committees to which bills are initially assigned. Each bill that passes through the House or the Senate is given to a committee. Committees are assigned bills that are similar to one another and that fit into the topic they are assigned to. A committee must approve of a bill first in order to be voted on by the rest of the House of Representatives or Senate (depending on which one the bill is currently at).
The House of Representatives has around twenty committees at the moment. There are some terms that come along with the committees such as standing committees and select committees. A standing committee essentially can be boiled down to a committee that is active and currently working in the House of Representatives. A select committee is a committee that may be created in order to serve a specific purpose.
An example of a committee part of the House of Representatives is the ways and means committee. This committee is in charge of legislation surrounding taxation, which for the United States, is how the government funds itself. Bills pertaining to this must pass through the House of Representatives first and go through this committee.
Once a committee agrees upon a bill, there are many things that could happen when being voted on by the rest of the House of Representatives. Depending on many different factors a bill could have a private or very public debate and the amount of debate for each bill varies as well. The bills that get passed through the House of Representatives successfully then must continue to get passed through the Senate as well.
Bills that go through the Senate must also be assigned to a Senate committee. The United States Senate currently has around sixteen standing committees. Two examples of committees that are in the Senate are the appropriations committee and the foreign relations committee. As mentioned previously, a bill can go to either the Senate or the House first but there are some exceptions to that.
The Senate usually has bills pertaining to foreign relations first. The Senate also tends to be much smaller than the House which means it's usually easier to pass bills through the Senate floor than on the House floor.
Once a bill is passed through both the Senate and the House of Representatives with a majority vote it is then moved up to the President of the United States. If the President signs the bill, then it successfully becomes a law. The President also has the power to veto a bill. If a bill gets vetoed, it has to be voted on by both the House and the Senate with more than a ⅔ majority.
By Elidia Magaña
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