This, My Friends, is How a Federal Law is made.

I sit here tonight, in the dungeon of Herkimer hall on Colonial Quad, at the wonderful University at Albany. "Its Friday night! Why in the world would you be there instead of consuming your weight in alcohol and pizza like the rest of the UAlbany population?" you shout back at me in horror, most likely as you read this with a hangover from the escapades of your own Friday night madness. Well faithful readers, there comes a point in one's college career that you must pick where you have your fun. For instance, next Thursday, six days from now, is my 21st birthday. "Now you're talking!" You shout back at your computer screen. Well the reason that I am here on a Friday night, approaching 11pm, is because I just have too much darn work to do. I have a paper due in Visual Culture on Wednesday, a paper due in my history class the following Monday, not to mention I had to write a news story by midnight tonight. I'm sure you all will be delightfully pleased to hear that my story is finished (which will be posted here on this blog in a matter of days, once the dreaded GRADE is handed down from the power that be) and now I can move on to my papers right! Well no, thats wrong. Instead I look down at my daily planner, and like a woman who just won't quit chewing my ear off, (I should be careful almost every person who actually reads this is a woman) she tells me I have one more assignment that I have forgotten. "BLOG: HOW A FEDERAL LAW IS MADE" is what she yelled at me, taunting and judging, as she always does. I remember the days when I didn't have a daily planner, ah the good old days. Those were also the days where if I wasn't intoxicated at this point on a Friday night I was either violently ill, or...well just violently ill. Those were also the days that my GPA was as low as my drive to succeed. So nowadays I must listen to my daily planner's constant whining and complaining, "You have this due at midnight, you can't do that when will you finish the paper?" She is a cruel lady, but she has my best interests at heart. So with that being said, and without further ado, here is How A Federal Law Is Made, by me.



I bet you were all expecting something very formal and prepared. Well no actually I'm just going to wing it, just like I did with that dreadful compound interest post. Here's how it goes here in America: There are two houses of Congress, The House of Representatives, and the Senate. The Senate has two members from each state, 100 members total. The amount of representatives that a state has in the House is decided by its population. Anyone who has taken the most basic form of social studies in this country should know that, if you don't shame on you. A law can come to be by the proposal of one of these four items. A bill, a joint resolution, a concurrent resolution, and a simple resolution. For the purposes of this blog I will speak about bills, because they are the most frequently used. Now, there are two types of bills: public bills, which can affect anyone in society, and private bills, which affects a specific individual or group. How is a bill first proposed you ask? Well, bills can be proposed in a number of ways. The most common way is when it is proposed by a member of the House or of the Senate. It is also very common that a bill is proposed by the public, through the means of a petition, a right granted to Americans in the First Amendment. Another way that a bill can be proposed is through "executive communication." This is when a specific government agency, or more likely the president himself, proposes a bill to one of the legislative bodies. This was most recently seen in President Bush's bailout proposal. Another common example of this is a proposal of a federal budget by a new president. So now you know how it is proposed, lets find out how it is passed, and turned into a law.

The first step of this process is consideration by a committee. This is when the person proposing the bill can hold hearings and collect evidence about the matter of the bill. Next, after possible revisions by the committee, the bill reaches the floor of the first house. This may be the House, or it may be the Senate, both have equal legislative powers, and it usually doesn't matter which goes first. There is one exception to that. I have not come across if this is an actual law, or if this is simply due to tradition, but bills referring to revenue, taxes and such, must originate in the House. Other than that, both houses have exactly equal powers.

After a bill is passed by majority rule through the House and the Senate, it is passed to the desk of the president. If the president signs the bill, a law has been made. If the president decides not to sign it, he can use his power of executive veto. After a veto, the president sends the bill back to Congress with his objections and or suggestions. The House and the Senate can override the President's veto if they vote it back through with a 2/3 majority in each house. I would assume that in many cases, the President would not want to oppose a bill that is so strongly approved in both houses. I do not know the history of the presidential veto or how many times it has happened, maybe that is for another blog post. you know what, better yet, how about you look it up for yourself eh?

picture: http://67degrees.com/images/bill.jpg

thats the website where I found it, but I should actually give credit to where credit is really due, and that is to the wonderful people who used to make, or still do I have no idea, School House Rock. If you really want to know how a bill is made, you should go to you tube and watch the School House Rock video about it, where this picture is from.