How a Bill Really Becomes Law, Including the Steps Schoolhouse Rock Skipped

Remember the cartoon? A cheerful rolled-up piece of paper sits on the Capitol steps, sings about his troubles, gets voted out of committee, passes the House, passes the Senate, and rides down Pennsylvania Avenue to the President's desk. It is a charming little song, and it is about as complete a map of Congress as a tourist brochure is a map of a city's back alleys. The cartoon bill never has to get past a chairman who simply does not want to hold a hearing. It never runs into a Senate rule that lets forty-one senators say no. It never waits for a Speaker to decide whether it deserves floor time.

Folks, if you want to understand why Washington does what it does, and why it so often does nothing, you need the real route. It is longer, it is stranger, and most of the dramatic action happens in rooms where no cameras are pointed. So here is the walk, step by step, with what to expect at each stop and where you can check it yourself. Everything below is the ordinary path. Exceptions exist, and I will flag the biggest ones.

Step 1: A member introduces the bill

Only a member of Congress can introduce a bill. A private citizen, a lobbyist or a President can write one, but a representative or senator must put his or her name on it. In the House, the member drops the bill in the hopper; in the Senate, a senator introduces it on the floor or hands it in. The bill gets a number: H.R. for a House bill, S. for a Senate bill, followed by a serial number for that Congress. A Congress lasts two years, and every bill that has not become law when the Congress ends simply dies. Sponsors must start over in the next one.

One constitutional wrinkle: under Article I, Section 7, bills for raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives. The Senate may propose amendments, but the tax-writing process starts at the chamber closest to the voters. In practice that rule also pulls spending bills toward the House.

What to expect: nothing. The vast majority of introduced bills go nowhere. Introduction is the cheapest thing a member can do, and it is often a way to send a message to voters. You can read the text of any bill, and follow its status, on Congress.gov, which is the official public record. Learn to use it.

Step 2: The bill is referred to a committee

The Speaker of the House or the presiding officer of the Senate (with the help of the parliamentarian) sends the bill to a committee with jurisdiction over its subject. A tax bill goes to Ways and Means in the House or Finance in the Senate. A bill on farm programs goes to the Agriculture committees. Some bills get referred to several committees.

This is where the first real power sits. The chairman of a committee, who comes from the majority party, controls the agenda. He or she decides which bills get a hearing, which get a markup session, and which never see the light of day. Committees hold hearings, hear from witnesses, and then hold a markup, where members offer amendments and vote. If the committee votes to send the bill on, it is "reported" to the full chamber. If not, the bill stays in the drawer.

What to expect: weeks or months, or never. A bill that has the chairman's support has a good chance. A bill the chairman dislikes has almost none, which is why who controls the committees matters so much. See our post on What the Minority Party in Congress Can Still Do When It Doesn't Run the Floor for what members who do not control the gavel can still try.

Step 3: The House Rules Committee sets the terms

Most important House bills do not go straight to a vote. They go to the Rules Committee, a small panel controlled by the majority party that decides how the bill will be debated: how long, and which amendments, if any, may be offered. The committee produces a "rule" (a special resolution), and the full House must adopt that rule by a majority vote before debate on the bill can begin.

A rule can be open, allowing any germane amendment, structured, allowing only certain ones, or closed, allowing none. That is real power, because the shape of the debate often decides the outcome. It also explains why a rule vote is sometimes the first and fiercest test of whether the majority party can hold itself together. If a party cannot pass its own rule, it cannot bring the bill to the floor.

What to expect: a floor vote on the rule, usually along party lines, then debate and a vote on passage. A simple majority of those voting passes the bill in the House.

Step 4: The discharge petition, the back door

What if the chairman sits on a bill and the Rules Committee will not move it? There is a back door in the House called the discharge petition. A member can file a petition to pull a bill out of committee and force it to the floor. Under House rules, the petition needs signatures from a majority of the House. With all 435 seats filled, that is 218 signatures, because 435 divided by 2 is 217.5, and a majority must be a whole number above that.

Discharge petitions rarely succeed, partly because members hesitate to cross their own party's leaders, and partly because the House rules can be changed by the majority at the start of each Congress. But the tool exists, and it matters because it is the rank-and-file's one reliable way to bypass leaders. Check the current House rules on the House Clerk's site if you want the exact thresholds, since the chamber adopts its rules fresh every two years.

What to expect: a rare, dramatic event. If you see headlines about a discharge petition, it means a group of members is trying to take control of the schedule away from their own leadership.

Step 5: The Senate takes it up, and unanimous consent runs the place

The Senate does not have a Rules Committee that sets the debate terms. Instead, the Senate operates largely through unanimous consent agreements, deals in which every senator agrees to a time limit or a set of amendments. If even one senator objects, the leaders must find another way to proceed. That is why individual senators have so much leverage compared to individual House members.

A senator can also place a "hold" on a bill or nomination, which is not a formal rule but a notice that he or she will object to unanimous consent. It forces the leader to burn floor time or negotiate. Senators of both parties use holds.

The rules allow a senator to talk, within limits, as long as the chamber stays on the matter. Talking a bill to death, or threatening to, is the filibuster. We make the case for why it matters in Why the Filibuster Is the Best Friend a Minority Party Ever Had.

Step 6: Cloture, the sixty-vote hurdle

To end debate on most legislation in the Senate, three-fifths of senators duly chosen and sworn must vote for cloture under Rule XXII. With 100 senators, that is 60 votes (100 times three-fifths is 60). A bill that has 51 supporters but not 60 can be stalled indefinitely by senators who refuse to end debate.

After cloture, debate does not vanish. A limited period of further debate follows, and then the vote on passage, which needs only a simple majority of those voting. The two-vote system is the reason you hear "60 votes" so often: the cloture vote is the real contest.

Not everything faces this hurdle. Budget reconciliation, a process created by the Budget Act of 1974, lets certain tax and spending measures pass the Senate on a simple majority, with limited debate. The "Byrd rule," named for Senator Robert Byrd, polices what may be included. Judicial and executive nominations, as we explain in the filibuster post linked above, now also move on a simple-majority cloture vote.

What to expect: a leader files the cloture motion, it ripens after an intervening day, and the Senate votes. If it fails, the bill is stuck unless the sponsors can negotiate changes that attract more votes.

Step 7: Both chambers must pass the identical text

Article I, Section 7 requires that a bill pass both the House and the Senate in the same form before it goes to the President. This is "bicameralism," and it is why the Founders gave us two chambers. If the House passes a bill and the Senate passes a different version, the differences must be resolved.

There are two main ways. One is a conference committee: members of both chambers meet to produce a single compromise text, which both chambers then vote on without further amendment. The other, now more common, is amendment ping-pong: one chamber amends the other's bill and sends it back, and the bill bounces between the chambers until they agree or give up. Often the leaders negotiate privately and one chamber simply takes up the other's version.

What to expect: if the two chambers are controlled by different parties, this is where many bills die. A bill can pass one chamber easily and then sit in the other's inbox for the rest of the Congress.

Step 8: Enrollment and presentment

When both chambers have agreed to the same text, the bill is "enrolled," printed on parchment-style paper, signed by the Speaker of the House and the Senate's presiding officer, and sent to the White House. Under Article I, Section 7, this step, called presentment, is not optional. Every bill, order, resolution or vote that requires the agreement of both houses and has the force of law must be presented to the President.

Step 9: The ten-day clock

Now the President has options, and the Constitution sets a clock. Once a bill is presented, he has ten days, not counting Sundays, to act.

1. Sign it. The bill becomes law.
2. Do nothing while Congress is in session. After ten days (Sundays excepted), the bill becomes law without his signature.
3. Veto it. He returns it to the chamber where it began, with his objections. Congress can then try to override.
4. Do nothing when Congress has adjourned in a way that prevents the bill's return. The bill does not become law. That is the "pocket veto," and it cannot be overridden because there is no chamber to receive the returned bill. Whether certain short recesses count has been argued over for generations.

What to expect: most bills presented are signed. A veto is the President's strongest legislative tool, and the threat of one shapes bills long before they reach him.

Step 10: The override

If the President vetoes a bill, each chamber can pass it again by a two-thirds vote of those voting, assuming a quorum is present. If both do, it becomes law over his objection. Override is difficult, which is the point. It means a President backed by just over one-third of one chamber can sustain a veto. That is how the Founders gave the executive a real voice in lawmaking, as we describe in the essay on Madison Built a Government Where Ambition Fights Ambition, and It Works.

The step Congress tried to skip: INS v. Chadha

Here is the lesson that ties the whole path together. For decades, Congress sometimes wrote into laws a "legislative veto," a clause that let one house, or even a committee, cancel an executive action without passing a new law and without the President's signature. It was convenient. It let Congress delegate authority to agencies and still keep a string attached.

In 1983, in INS v. Chadha, the Supreme Court held that was unconstitutional. The case grew out of the Immigration and Nationality Act, under which the Attorney General could suspend a deportation, but either house of Congress could veto that suspension. Jagdish Chadha was the immigrant whose suspension the House overrode. The Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Warren Burger, held that when Congress takes action that has the force of law, it must follow Article I, Section 7: both houses must pass it, and the President must have the chance to sign or veto. There is no shortcut.

Conservatives should love that holding for a simple reason. It says Congress cannot dodge the hard votes. If Congress wants to make binding law, it must go through the full process, including the part where the President can say no. Chadha is a limit on both branches at once. It stops Congress from skipping presentment, and it reminds us that when Congress hands power to agencies, the way to take it back is to pass a new law, not to wave a legislative hand.

The bottom line

• The real path has at least ten steps, and a bill can die at any one of them. Most die in committee, where the chairman controls the agenda, so the committee gavel matters more than the party label on the front page.
• In the House, the two numbers to know are a simple majority to pass and 218 signatures (of 435) to discharge a bill. In the Senate, the number is 60 for cloture, with 51 enough for reconciliation.
• Track any bill yourself on Congress.gov, and read the text, not the press release. Then call your member's office and ask where it is stuck and why.
• Remember Chadha: a law must pass both houses and face the President. When someone proposes a shortcut that avoids that, ask whether it is constitutional, and whether you would still like it with the other party in charge.
• To learn who sits on the key committees and how members voted, use the Republican pages on this site, such as Republicans and Bills, then check the official record before you quote anyone.