The Process Begins

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Before a member of Congress introduces a bill in the House or Senate, the bill must be drafted. Writing legislation requires precision, attention to detail, an intimate understanding of existing laws, and a clear understanding of the proposed policy solution. Members of Congress often rely on staff, experts in the area the proposed legislation will effect, and congressional legal staff to assist them in drafting legislation.

Members of Congress must successfully compete for congressional and public attention, or the legislation they introduce is bound to fail. Thousands of bills are introduced each year, and only a handful become law. To build support and momentum for a bill, members of Congress generally hold press conferences to announce the introduction of legislation. They will also secure as many co-sponsors as possible for their legislation to provide evidence of broad congressional support for the bill.

Committee Referral and Committee Consideration

Once a bill has been formally introduced, it is referred to a congressional committee for further consideration. There are nineteen permanent standing committees in the House and seventeen in the Senate. Each of these committees has a specific area of legislative jurisdiction, and bills are generally referred to committees accordingly. In many cases, however, bills address topics that fall under the jurisdiction of more than one committee. In others, it is unclear which committee has jurisdiction over a bill. In these cases, party leaders in each house choose which committee or committees will consider the legislation.

A favorable committee assignment can mean the difference between success or failure for a bill. If a bill is assigned to a committee with a chair that supports the legislation, the bill is likely to be scheduled for a timely public hearing, full committee consideration and a vote. A chair who does not support legislation can easily kill a bill by simply failing to put it anywhere near the top of the committee’s agenda. (While members of the House or Senate, through different procedures, can bring legislation to the floor over the objections of a committee or its Chair, members are very reluctant to encroach on committee jurisdiction.)

Because committees have crowded agendas and because of scheduling difficulties, many otherwise “good” bills die in committee simply because there is not enough time to deal with them. For this reason, committees are sometimes referred to as the legislative “graveyard.”

Most bills that are referred to a committee are also referred to a subcommittee. Most of the bills referred to subcommittees are never referred to the floor for consideration. This reality has earned subcommittees the unflattering title of “legislative graveyard” because this is where most proposed legislation dies. Once a bill has been reviewed, “marked up” (amended), and voted on by a subcommittee, it is returned to the full committee for further consideration. When a committee is ready to take final action on a bill, it votes to either keep the bill in the committee (thereby killing it) or sending it to the floor for further consideration.