I think you might be confusing a bill and a law. warnold pretty much took care of the whole draft vs. bill issue -- sometimes drafts are released for discussion early on, but more likely, we'll have to wait to see the text of any proposed legislation once it's actually introduced in the House or the Senate.
The process goes like this:
1. Bill introduced in House (or Senate) -- now it's available for everyone to read in THOMAS (http://thomas.loc.gov/) 2. Bill gets debated about 3. Bill probably gets referred off to committee 4. Bill gets amended 5. Goto step 2 until someone calls for a vote 6. Bill gets voted on 7. If vote passes, bill goes to Senate (or House), where the same procedure happens 8. If vote didn't pass, the bill is dead 9. If votes in House and Senate have passes, bill goes to the President 10. If the President signs the bill, it becomes a law 11. Otherwise, if he vetoes it, it's dead (there are a couple of odd little exceptions here which I'll explain in a bit
So there's a lot that happens between the time a bill is introduced and the time it becomes -- or, rather, might become -- a law. Here's an example of the schedule for a bill (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN00214:@@@X|TOM:/bss/d110query.html|) that started in the Senate, passed, then went to the House and eventually became a law. As you can see, it was referred to committee immediately after it was introduced, and the committee spent almost a month before they even talked about it. That's plenty of time for interested citizens to read the text of the bill online, call and write their Senators who are in that committee, and ask them to make either a positive or a negative recommendation on it (or suggest amendments, or whatever).
Then, once it was placed on the Senate calendar, another month went by before it even came up for a vote. Again, lots of time to write and call Senators and tell them to vote for or against it.
Once the bill passed, it waited two months before the House even looked at it. Once they looked at it, they passed it pretty quickly (on the recommendation of the Senate), and then they waited two weeks before they presented it to the President (during which time people could also bug the White House about whether the President should sign it or not), and ten days later later, he finally signed it, and it became a law.
So there's a big process that has to happen between a bill being presented and it actually becoming a law.
As I mentioned above, there are a couple of odd things that can happen after the bill has been presented to the President. If he simply doesn't sign it for 10 days, the bill (that's already been passed by the House and Senate) automatically becomes a law, unless Congress adjourns before those ten days are up. In that very specific case, the bill is automatically vetoed and does not become a law. This is called a pocket veto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_veto).
The legislative process is a bit confusing -- don't feel bad about asking for clarification. Wikipedia and the U.S. House of Representatives (http://www.house.gov/house/Tying_it_all.shtml) have some more good information on how it works.
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Date: 2008-04-13 06:31 pm (UTC)The process goes like this:
1. Bill introduced in House (or Senate) -- now it's available for everyone to read in THOMAS (http://thomas.loc.gov/)
2. Bill gets debated about
3. Bill probably gets referred off to committee
4. Bill gets amended
5. Goto step 2 until someone calls for a vote
6. Bill gets voted on
7. If vote passes, bill goes to Senate (or House), where the same procedure happens
8. If vote didn't pass, the bill is dead
9. If votes in House and Senate have passes, bill goes to the President
10. If the President signs the bill, it becomes a law
11. Otherwise, if he vetoes it, it's dead
(there are a couple of odd little exceptions here which I'll explain in a bit
So there's a lot that happens between the time a bill is introduced and the time it becomes -- or, rather, might become -- a law. Here's an example of the schedule for a bill (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN00214:@@@X|TOM:/bss/d110query.html|) that started in the Senate, passed, then went to the House and eventually became a law. As you can see, it was referred to committee immediately after it was introduced, and the committee spent almost a month before they even talked about it. That's plenty of time for interested citizens to read the text of the bill online, call and write their Senators who are in that committee, and ask them to make either a positive or a negative recommendation on it (or suggest amendments, or whatever).
Then, once it was placed on the Senate calendar, another month went by before it even came up for a vote. Again, lots of time to write and call Senators and tell them to vote for or against it.
Once the bill passed, it waited two months before the House even looked at it. Once they looked at it, they passed it pretty quickly (on the recommendation of the Senate), and then they waited two weeks before they presented it to the President (during which time people could also bug the White House about whether the President should sign it or not), and ten days later later, he finally signed it, and it became a law.
So there's a big process that has to happen between a bill being presented and it actually becoming a law.
As I mentioned above, there are a couple of odd things that can happen after the bill has been presented to the President. If he simply doesn't sign it for 10 days, the bill (that's already been passed by the House and Senate) automatically becomes a law, unless Congress adjourns before those ten days are up. In that very specific case, the bill is automatically vetoed and does not become a law. This is called a pocket veto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_veto).
The legislative process is a bit confusing -- don't feel bad about asking for clarification. Wikipedia and the U.S. House of Representatives (http://www.house.gov/house/Tying_it_all.shtml) have some more good information on how it works.