Congressional Committees

Committees What do committees do? The detailed work of lawmaking is done in committee rather than the House of Senate floor. So many bills are introduced each year that few of them would be considered if the work were not divided among smaller groups.

Committees When senators and representatives first come to Congress, they try to get assigned to important committees that affect the people who elected them. For example, members of Congress from farm areas might want to serve on agriculture committees.

Subcommittees Permanent committees that continue their work from session to session are called standing committees. Most standing committees are divided into smaller subcommittees that deal with more specialized issues.

Committee Chair How is a committee chair chosen? Committee chairs are appointed by the president of the Senate or the speaker of the House. The chair has numerous responsibilities Sets the committee’s agenda, determining when will be considered, amongst others.

Passing a Bill

1. What type of bill will it be? Is it going to be a Private Bill or a Public Bill? Private bills concern individual people or places. They usually deal with people’s claims against the government. Public bills apply to the entire nation and involve general matters like taxation, civil rights, or terrorism. These are the bills that you see debated for months and get a lot of media coverage.

2. Proposing the bill Every bill starts with an idea, but who can propose the idea? The President can’t propose a bill, but he can tell someone in Congress from his party to propose a bill Other bills are suggested by special-interest groups. These are organizations made of people with a common interest who try to influence government decisions.

3. Committee Action Committees receive far more bills than they can process. Who decides what bills get heard or not? The committee chair decides which bills get ignored and which bills get studied. Standing committees and have life-and-death power over bills

3. Committee Action At this point the committee can… Pass the bill without any changes Make changes themselves Replace the original bill with an alternative Ignore the bill and let it die Kill the bill outright with a majority vote At any time, the full House of Senate can overrule the decisions of committees

4. Floor Debate Bills that are approved by committees are ready for consideration by the full House or Senate. At this point members of the House/Senate argue their pros and cons. In the Senate, Senators can speak as long as they wish and they are not even required to address the topic at hand Here, Senators can take advantage of a filibuster

4. Floor Debate The Senate can end a filibuster if three-fifths if the members vote for cloture. Under this procedure, no one may speak for more than an hour. However, Senators rarely resort to cloture.

5. Voting After all this, if the vote is still alive, members of Congress can vote on the proposed law. A simple majority of all members present is all that needed. What happens if the House approves a bill but the Senate doesn’t approve it? The bill dies

6. Presidential Approval After a bill is approved by both houses it goes to the president. One of four things may happen at this point: President signs the bill President vetoes the bill Do nothing for 10 days, in which case the bill becomes law without the president’s signature IF CONGRESS IS IN SESSION. If Congress is NOT in session, the bill dies after 10 days, which is called a pocket veto.

7. Congressional Override (if necessary) If the president vetoes the bill, Congress has one chance to save it. Congress can override the veto with a two-thirds vote of each house.