How a bill becomes a law

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How a bill becomes a law발음듣기

[Instructor] In other videos we have first started talking about the legislative branch of the United States federal government.발음듣기

We talk about how it has two houses the Senate that has 100 members two per state, two times 50 and the House of Representatives that has 435 members.발음듣기

And states have a certain number of representatives depending on their population.발음듣기

We're going to go into a little more depth in this video is exactly how laws get passed in particular how do bills get passed by one or both of these houses.발음듣기

And if you're looking at the U.S. Capitol building from the lawn.발음듣기

You can assume that the Washington Monument is behind you in this picture right over here the Senate chamber is on the left side, just like that and the House of Representatives is on the right side.발음듣기

Well, what does a bill actually look like?발음듣기

So, right over here is the cover of a House bill and notice some interesting things.발음듣기

The House bill starts with H.R., House of Representatives 1.발음듣기

And so this is the first bill being introduced in this first session of the 108th Congress.발음듣기

And it says, and it's a little hard to read especially if you're looking at this on a mobile phone.발음듣기

But it says, to amend Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for voluntary program for prescription drug coverage under the Medicare program to modernize the Medicare program and for other purposes.발음듣기

So that's just a very quick summary.발음듣기

And then it talks about who are the representatives that are introducing the bill.발음듣기

So it's Mr. Hastert and then it's in parentheses it says for himself and then it says, Mr. DeLay Mr. Blunt, and it keeps going on and on and on.발음듣기

And this was introduced June 25, 2003.발음듣기

And over here, the bottom of where it talks about who is introducing this bill.발음듣기

It says which was referred jointly to the Committee on Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.발음듣기

So this is the first clue of how bills get started.발음듣기

In theory, anyone could write a bill in practice, they are written by a member of Congress's aides or aides of a committee and we're gonna talk more about committees.발음듣기

But they need to be formerly introduced by members of Congress.발음듣기

And you can see here Mr. Hastert Congressman Hastert is listed first.발음듣기

But it doesn't go straight to a vote by the full House of Representatives.발음듣기

It will be introduced to an appropriate committee which is a subset of the House of Representatives.발음듣기

In this case it's going to go to both the Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Ways and Means Committee.발음듣기

We can similarly look at a Senate bill and it has some similarities.발음듣기

And the key thing to appreciate is that a bill could be introduced into the House initially or into the Senate initially.발음듣기

And sometimes you have parallel bills that are essentially trying to do the same thing going through both chambers at the same time.발음듣기

But right over here, this is a Senate bill Senate bill 1833, this is in the 115th Congress to modify the requirements applicable to locatable minerals on public domain land and for other purposes.발음듣기

And then this is September 19th, 2017.발음듣기

It says, Mr. Udall for himself and then it lists other senators introduced the following bill which was read twice and referred to the committee on Energy and Natural Resources.발음듣기

And then you start seeing the text of the bill.발음듣기

So once again, whether it initially gets introduced into the Senate or into the House the first place where it goes is to the appropriate committee.발음듣기

And in general, it will only get voted on by the entire Senate or the entire House if it is approved by a committee.발음듣기

If a majority of the committee actually votes for it.발음듣기

Now what are these committees?발음듣기

So in the House of Representatives you currently have over 20 committees at the time that I'm making this video.발음듣기

Right now you have 20 standing committees which means they are continuously in operation.발음듣기

And one select committee, which means it might be created for a special purpose although some of these select committees tend to last for awhile.발음듣기

Now what I'm gonna list here are some of the most powerful committees in the House of Representatives.발음듣기

You have the House Ways and Means Committee.발음듣기

Now why is this important?발음듣기

What is a Ways and Means?발음듣기

This is the committee that first considers legislation around taxation.발음듣기

So it's the ways and means by which the government can actually fund itself.발음듣기

And so you can imagine this is very, very powerful.발음듣기

Who gets taxed, by how much how much revenue is actually coming in?발음듣기

What will that do to the economy?발음듣기

And this is a committee that's very specific to the House of Representatives.발음듣기

In general, bills could be introduced to the Senate or the House or both.발음듣기

But if it's something regarding taxation that has to originate in the House of Representatives and it will go through the House Ways and Means Committee.발음듣기

Another very powerful committee is the Budget Committee.발음듣기

Through tax policy, the House Ways and Means Committee influences how the government gets its revenue but the Budget Committee decides what is actually the budget of the government.발음듣기

The president can make a proposed budget but it's the budget committee that actually decides on what budget Congress will actually vote on in the House.발음듣기

Now, once you have a budget, you have to think about how you're gonna spend that money.발음듣기

And that's what the Appropriations Committee is focused on.발음듣기

Which programs get how much funding?발음듣기

So once again, this is a very powerful committee to be on.발음듣기

But perhaps the most powerful committee of all is the Rules Committee.발음듣기

The reason why this is so powerful is that in the House of Representatives even if a bill is introduced into committe.발음듣기

And even if that committee decides to vote on that bill and let's say they pass it by a simple majority it doesn't go straight to the floor of the House of Representatives to a vote.발음듣기

The Rules Committee is actually you can view them as the traffic cop for the House of Representatives.발음듣기

For the most part, they decide which bills go to the floor of the House, what are the rules by which they are voted on.발음듣기

Are people allowed to make amendments which are add-ons to that bill?발음듣기

Are people even allowed to debate it?발음듣기

They can even decide whether it's going to be voted on by the House of Representatives acting as the House of Representatives.발음듣기

Or whether it's gonna be voted on as the Committee of the Whole, so to speak which is the entire House of Representatives.발음듣기

The difference between voting for something as a House of Representatives or the Committee of the Whole in either case.발음듣기

It would happen in the same room is that there's different procedures on how to do it.발음듣기

And so you can imagine there's a lot of strategy depending on which party is in charge on what initially even gets through a committee.발음듣기

And then once it gets through a committee what's the procedure by which it is voted on or whether it gets voted on at all.발음듣기

Does it have a very public debate or is there very little debate?발음듣기

Now, if something does pass the House then that same bill, once it passes the House would have to be voted on by the Senate.발음듣기

Now, similarly, in the Senate, when a bill is introduced it goes to committee.발음듣기

And in the Senate currently there are 16 standing committees and over 20 total committees at the time of this video.발음듣기

And just to get a sense of some of the more powerful committees on the Senate you have things like the Appropriations Committee which is a sister committee of the House Appropriations Committee that we talked about before.발음듣기

Once again, they will try to think about well how could that money be spent?발음듣기

You have the Foreign Relations Committee.발음듣기

One key distinction between the Senate and the House there's a lot of areas where they both might legislate on or introduce legislation on.발음듣기

But in general, tax bills can only originate in the House while the Senate is closer to things like foreign relations.발음듣기

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee all treaties would go through them.발음듣기

The Senate Armed Services Committee it has legislative authority over the military.발음듣기

Now once something gets through any of these committees then it would go through the Senate floor.발음듣기

And even there you start to appreciate a difference between the House and the Senate.발음듣기

In the Senate, not only do you have a fewer number of senators they tend to be more generalists and it's easier for something to get to the Senate floor.발음듣기

It's a little bit more collegial.발음듣기

In the House, if the majority party is strongly controlling the Rules Committee, they can very strongly control not just what gets to the floor.발음듣기

But what is debated, how it's debated if it's debated and what has amendments put on it.발음듣기

And also, the members who serve on these committees it's a little bit more specialized.발음듣기

Now in either case, once a bill gets through either house it has to be voted on by the other house.발음듣기

So if a bill gets approved by the Senate then it will go to the House and if that same bill is approved by the House with a simple majority, then it will go to the President.발음듣기

Now the President might sign the bill in which case it would become law or the President could veto that bill.발음듣기

If the President vetoes the bill, it goes back to both of these houses and to override the veto each of these houses they both have to vote with a 2/3 majority and that happens very seldom.발음듣기

Now you also have a scenario where sometimes very similar bills are going through both houses at the same time.발음듣기

So there's a situation where a similar bill has gone through both houses at the same time what it goes to is something called a conference committee.발음듣기

And a conference committee is a group of both senators and representatives who will get together and they'll try to reconcile the differences between those two bills.발음듣기

And once they get one bill that reconciles the differences between those two, then they'll go back for a vote to both houses.발음듣기

And if they pass both houses, then once again it will go to the President who could decide to sign it or veto it, and once again, if it gets vetoed that veto could get overridden.발음듣기

So the big picture here is we've talked about that policy making process in previous videos where at first you wanna identify an issue and then you wanna do policy formulation.발음듣기

Well, a lot of that is going on in the U.S. Congress.발음듣기

You have congressional aides who are identifying problems maybe different constituents, maybe lobbyists are saying hey, can you fix this or can you change the tax code in some way?발음듣기

Then they formulate a policy which is essentially these bills.발음듣기

These bills are essentially a policy formulation and then those policies have to be adopted.발음듣기

To be adopted, it has to be approved by both houses of Congress and then signed by the President.발음듣기

Or if it's vetoed by the President that veto has to be overridden by both houses of Congress.발음듣기

And then it's up to the Executive Branch to implement that policy.발음듣기

I'll leave you there.발음듣기

And in future videos we'll talk more about the mechanics of the U.S. Congress.발음듣기

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