Things You Should Know About the Legislative Process
There is need to read more here about the way the government works since this tends to be the first step towards getting involved therefore makes positive changes through the legislature view here! There are thousands of bills that get introduced to Congress each year view here for more. The fact that these bills have a detrimental impact requires to know more about them. Having an insight on the legislative system requires one to click here on this site for more info.
Legislative branch has two houses. These are House of Representative and the Senate. This was brought about by the Great Compromise of 1787. In the House of Representatives which tend to be the lower chamber of the US congress, members here are elected every two years. Each state is guaranteed to have one representative regardless of the population size. The Senate which is the upper chamber have its members elected every six years. There being two senators in each state means that such will never change based on state population.
Another one is lawmaking process. New laws are drafted in a process where a member of the Congress introduces a bill. A bill is defined as a law that is proposed either by someone in the House of Representatives or by the Senate. Upon introduction of this bill it then goes to a committee for consideration which is comprised of experts on specific subjects. The committee can either reject or approve the bill. Being rejected in this stage means that it will not go further but if approved the law will go on the next process click for more. The members of the Congress debate and vote on it after approval. The bill goes to the President. The president either signs or veto the bill.
Filibuster. This tends to be a legislative tactic used by lawmakers to delay or prevent drafting new laws. Senators delay the voting of a bill by speaking about it for more time. Given that the Senate rules says that any senator can talk about a bill for as long as they want unless three-fifth of the senate votes to end the debate, it means that filibuster can be used to delay and prevent a bill from being voted. There are considerable debates about reforming or removing filibuster but its unlikely that it will change in the future.
Next is conference committees. The differences between the House as well as the Senate are resolved by the conference committee. There are differences resolved by this committee which emanates from the two houses passing different versions of a bill. There is making significant changes to the bill or negotiating new provisions. Upon completion of this product new version, its then voted for which later goes to the president.
The last one is the Presidential veto. Presidents tend not to have ability to make new laws without working with Congress. This bill is signed, ignored or vetoed by the President within ten days.