Follow a bill from a congressional committee to being signed into law by the president of the United States
Follow a bill from a congressional committee to being signed into law by the president of the United States
Mark Andrews and Thomas Eagleton talk about how Congress passes legislation.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
ANDREWS: Part of a congressman's job is legislative. He has to introduce legislation. He has to sit on committees where legislation is discussed. He has to draw up the spending bills and the taxing bills of his country, and that's part of his--his job.
[Sound of rocket launching]
NARRATOR: Though Congress is the legally constituted lawmaking branch of our government, it has become traditional for every Chief Executive to propose legislative programs that he wants to see enacted.
KENNEDY: Now it is time to take longer strides, time for a great new American enterprise, time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways . . . may hold the key to our future on earth [applause]. I, therefore, ask the Congress--above and beyond the increases I had earlier requested for space activities--to provide the funds which are needed . . .
NARRATOR: But no matter how meaningful or dramatic a presidential proposal may be, that proposal will go nowhere if Congress does not approve. So while President Kennedy could lay the blueprint for putting a man on the moon in the sixties, it was Congress who passed the laws and provided the funds to make this great venture possible.
Most of the real work of Congress is not conducted on the floors of the Senate and the House, but in committees. And it is in committees that our elected representatives can be most effective.
ANDREWS: After you get the bill in--in the hopper, it's referred to a committee almost immediately. And the committee chairman, if the author of the bill requests it, will request departmental reports. This is when, the--if it's an Interior bill, the Department of Interior will give its opinion of the bill and how it will function and whether they are for it or against it. This takes care of the administration side. Then the committee, if it feels the bill is of significant importance, will begin to hold hearings.
The publicity given to the hearing process, when individuals come in on both sides of this legislation, is where the people become aware of what this legislation could do. And they then have the opportunity to contact their members of Congress, to contact people in the association they belong to to come down and make their views known.
NARRATOR: No area of government commands more public suspicion than the activities of those who represent special interest groups or companies. They are called lobbyists.
EAGLETON: I presume that, by and large, the public has a very negative judgment as to what a lobbyist is. In fact, the word "lobbyist," or "lobbying," in many circles is deemed to be a dirty word. I don't so deem it.
A lobbyist can be very helpful to a senator, in terms of gathering information, statistics and--and relevant information that otherwise he and his staff would maybe have to take hundreds of hours to bring in. Where lobbying gets to be a dirty word is where a lobbyist has used undue pressure or attempted to intimidate a member of the Senate or a member of the House; then lobbying of that type is--is negative, is corrupt, and is sinister.
NARRATOR: Every bill of any importance whatsoever requires a battery of witnesses: administrative officials, advocates of the measure, opponents, experts, ordinary citizens whose lives will be touched by the measure. Hearings must be scheduled, even outside of Washington. All this takes time.
ANDREWS: It might take two or three Congresses before the hearings are finally wound up and a bill becomes presentable to be brought to the floor of the House or the Senate. And then, when it passes one body, it goes through the hearing process in the other body.
EAGLETON: And if there are differences between the House version of the bill and the Senate version of the bill, those differences have to be reconciled, because a bill has to be passed in identical form by both houses, before it goes to the President for his signature. If there are differing versions, then there's what's called a conference committee between the House and the Senate so that there is this one unified version that goes to the President for his signature. The President then signs the bill, or he can veto it. If he vetoes it, his veto can be overridden if two-thirds of both the Senate and the House vote to override. That's very difficult and very rare that a presidential veto is overridden.
[Sound of rocket launching]
NARRATOR: Though Congress is the legally constituted lawmaking branch of our government, it has become traditional for every Chief Executive to propose legislative programs that he wants to see enacted.
KENNEDY: Now it is time to take longer strides, time for a great new American enterprise, time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways . . . may hold the key to our future on earth [applause]. I, therefore, ask the Congress--above and beyond the increases I had earlier requested for space activities--to provide the funds which are needed . . .
NARRATOR: But no matter how meaningful or dramatic a presidential proposal may be, that proposal will go nowhere if Congress does not approve. So while President Kennedy could lay the blueprint for putting a man on the moon in the sixties, it was Congress who passed the laws and provided the funds to make this great venture possible.
Most of the real work of Congress is not conducted on the floors of the Senate and the House, but in committees. And it is in committees that our elected representatives can be most effective.
ANDREWS: After you get the bill in--in the hopper, it's referred to a committee almost immediately. And the committee chairman, if the author of the bill requests it, will request departmental reports. This is when, the--if it's an Interior bill, the Department of Interior will give its opinion of the bill and how it will function and whether they are for it or against it. This takes care of the administration side. Then the committee, if it feels the bill is of significant importance, will begin to hold hearings.
The publicity given to the hearing process, when individuals come in on both sides of this legislation, is where the people become aware of what this legislation could do. And they then have the opportunity to contact their members of Congress, to contact people in the association they belong to to come down and make their views known.
NARRATOR: No area of government commands more public suspicion than the activities of those who represent special interest groups or companies. They are called lobbyists.
EAGLETON: I presume that, by and large, the public has a very negative judgment as to what a lobbyist is. In fact, the word "lobbyist," or "lobbying," in many circles is deemed to be a dirty word. I don't so deem it.
A lobbyist can be very helpful to a senator, in terms of gathering information, statistics and--and relevant information that otherwise he and his staff would maybe have to take hundreds of hours to bring in. Where lobbying gets to be a dirty word is where a lobbyist has used undue pressure or attempted to intimidate a member of the Senate or a member of the House; then lobbying of that type is--is negative, is corrupt, and is sinister.
NARRATOR: Every bill of any importance whatsoever requires a battery of witnesses: administrative officials, advocates of the measure, opponents, experts, ordinary citizens whose lives will be touched by the measure. Hearings must be scheduled, even outside of Washington. All this takes time.
ANDREWS: It might take two or three Congresses before the hearings are finally wound up and a bill becomes presentable to be brought to the floor of the House or the Senate. And then, when it passes one body, it goes through the hearing process in the other body.
EAGLETON: And if there are differences between the House version of the bill and the Senate version of the bill, those differences have to be reconciled, because a bill has to be passed in identical form by both houses, before it goes to the President for his signature. If there are differing versions, then there's what's called a conference committee between the House and the Senate so that there is this one unified version that goes to the President for his signature. The President then signs the bill, or he can veto it. If he vetoes it, his veto can be overridden if two-thirds of both the Senate and the House vote to override. That's very difficult and very rare that a presidential veto is overridden.