A Brief Description Of How A Bill Moves Through Congress ● Part II

If you missed Part I last week, you can read it here.

Part one showed how a bill is introduced and guided through the system for passage or defeat. Here’s a few insider details.

The chairman of a subcommittee or committee has great power to push a bill he favors or to prevent a vote from ever taking place--you may hear a bill will "die in committee," meaning it has no support or that the chairman will never let it be put to a vote or debate because he's afraid it might pass. A Republican chairman of course wouldn’t allow a vote on a liberal bill, and a Democrat wouldn’t advance a conservative bill.

Various tricks, deals, and battles can occur to prevent a bill that has survived a committee vote from ever having a vote, or to sneak through a dangerous or unpopular bill. In the Senate, the threat of "filibusters" effectively requires 60 votes to 'cut off debate' and schedule a vote. The filibuster is a double-edged sword that prevented many of President Trump’s bills from passing, but has also helped prevent many of President Biden’s worst bills from passing.

You may have heard the term "reconciliation" in budget battles, which is a method to bypass Senate rules on cutting off debate for budgetary issues. That has been used to pass bills that couldn’t be passed alone. Job-destroying treaties were usually submitted with "fast-track" deals denying members from improving or otherwise changing the language, always to the detriment of our nation.

Read the bill! The text of an unpopular or dangerous bill can often be added to a popular bill as an amendment to force opponents to vote for it. Bills may also have a page or two of dangerous legislation buried in a seemingly innocent bill--they hope nobody will notice. That’s why it’s vital for conservatives to read the bills.

Many in Congress and the media use groups like "children," "the elderly," "the needy," etc. to pass socialist legislation, accusing any legitimate opposition of being "against children." Senator Jay Rockefeller stooped low to defend the dangerous and expensive SCHIP bill in January 2009: "To me, it should be difficult enough to (even) think of voting against a bill on children."

Your job for such sympathy-inducing bill titles is to point out why the bill will have the opposite effect. A lovely-sounding healthcare bill would actually make healthcare more expensive or kill senior citizens through rationed treatment.

Once passed by both houses, a "Conference Committee" of several Representatives and Senators may be selected to work out any differences between the Senate and House versions, and only after both houses have approved the same language will the final version be presented to the President for his signature or veto.

While the rules of the House and Senate are complex, and many originated in the early days of our republic, this brief review—and last week’s first half, will give you the basics you need to be a more successful grassroots activist.

Grassroots Americans CAN help pass or defeat a bill. You can use these instructions with any bill, and TCC will send you alerts on bills we need to pass or defeat. The overall concepts here will work in state legislatures.