The process of a Bill through the House Of Representatives

In order for a Bill to go through the process of being voted on and then sent to the Senate or the President, a Bill must first go through many other processes that ensure that the Bill is ready to be passed on into the floor to be voted on, and passed by the House of Representatives. For instance the Bill before being passed on to the floor and being debated on, must pass through the Rules Committee, after it is passed to different Committees that are made up of the different members of the House, and the Bill is debated and analyzed. Finnaly after the this process is followed the Bill is passed to the floor and is voted on, but the voting is not as easy as it sounds, there is a process to that too. With all these different processes, that a Bill must go through just to be seen by the House, let alone voted on, prove that the process to getting a Bill passed is very hard and demanding.

For a Bill to be seen and go through the process of legislation and make its way to the floor of the House, first the Bill must be proposed. A Bill may be proposed at anytime and by anyone, all that person has to do is drop it in a wooden box, called a "hopper", that is on the side of the Clerk's desk in the House Chamber, the other thing that the person must do is make sure that they sign their name on the Bill. Once the Bill has been dropped in the hopper, the long process begins, first the Bill's title is put into the Journal and put into the Congresional Record, after the Clerk of the House assigns the Bill its legislative number, and than depending on what committee the Speaker wants to see it first, or if it is a special Bill it goes to the appropiate committee.

In order for a Bill to be seen and voted on by the House of Representatives, there is a process that the the Bill must go through, first of all the Speaker of the House can choose to not let a Bill be voted on or considered by the House, if he/she does not want to and has good reason for it. Before a bill reaches the floor of the House, the Bill must first go through the Rules Commitee. The Rules Commitee is "is a committee of the United States House of Representatives. Rather than being responsible for a specific area of policy, as most other committees are, it is in charge of determining under what rule other bills will come to the floor. As such, it is one of the most powerful committees, and often described as "an arm of the leadership" and as the "traffic cop" of Congress. A rule is a simple resolution of the House of Representatives, usually reported by the Committee on Rules, to permit the immediate consideration of a legislative measure, notwithstanding the usual order of business, and to prescribe conditions for its debate and amendment." (Wikipedia) The Rules Committee basically decides for how long and under what rules the Bill will be discussed under, if it even deems the Bill "worthy" so to say, if not, it is possible that the Bill will not even reach the other parts of the process.

After the Bill has gone through the right processes and has been seen by different committees especially the Rules Committee, it then goes through the last process of been voted on by the House. There are many ways the House can add their votes, the most popular way, especially with important votes on Bills, is the voice vote, this is a vote where the presiding officer puts the question forward and the members respond either Yea, for yes or Nay for no, after the presiding officer announces the total of the votes. Other ways that the house may vote is electronically, by teller vote, where the members are given cards, green meaning yes and red meaning no and orange meaning they want to abstain, they cast their vote by giving the appropiate card. The last method of voting is the roll call vote, where the clerk calls each member by name, and then when called the member casts his vote.

In light of all that has been said in order for a Bill to go through the process of being voted on and then sent to the House of Representatives, it must first go through many other processes that ensure that the Bill is ready to be passed on into the floor to be voted on, and passed by the House of Representatives. For instance the Bill before being passed on to the floor and being debated on, must pass through the Rules Committee, after it is passed to different Committees that are made up of the different members of the House, and the Bill is debated and analyzed. Finnaly after the this process is followed the Bill is passed to the floor and is voted on, but the voting is not as easy as it sounds, there is a process to that too. With all these different processes, that a Bill must go through just to be seen by the House, let alone voted on, prove that the process to getting a Bill passed is very hard and demanding.

Work Cited entry

Lexicon Universal Encyclopedia. Copyright 1990 by Lexicon Publications, Inc.

McClenaghan, A., William. Magruder’s American Government. Department of Political Science Oregon State University Prentice Hall Needham, Massachusetts 1989.