How a Bill Becomes a Law

This can be a very complicated process, depending on if the potential bill gets vetoed or dies in committee. Here is the basic steps to a bill becoming a law though!

1. Bill is Written/Proposed
- All laws start as ideas - from representatives or citizens. Once an idea is formulated the citizen contacts their Representative, or the Representative themselves, write the idea into a bill.
- Every bill needs a sponsor, so the Representative finds other Representatives who are in support of this bill. Once it has support it is ready to be brought to the House of Representatives.

2. Bill Introduction/Committees
- Once a bill is introduced, the clerk will read the bill to the Representatives and the Speaker of the House will send it to the correct committee*.
- Once in committee, the Representatives research, revised, and review the bill before voting on it. When they vote on it they are deciding whether or not it should go back to the House or if they should just ditch it.
- If the bill is approved to go back to the House for debate it is reported.

3. Bill is Debated/Voted
- The bill is then brought to the House and the Representatives discuss the bill and can make changes to the bill. Once debate is over and all amendments are made, the bill is ready to be voted upon.
- For the bill to pass to the next step (being reviewed and debated in Senate) it must receive a majority vote.

4. Bill at Senate
- If the bill reaches Senate it goes through committees and being discussed on the Senate floor.
- Senators vote by voice and if the majority wins, the bill then heads to the President.

                                                      5. Bill with the President
- The President has three choices on what to do with the bill. He can sign it and the bill becomes a law!! Yayyy! He can "veto" the bill. The bill will then be sent back to the House of Representatives, if the House and Senate still want the bill to become a law they can vote again and if the bill receives a 2/3's majority vote the President has to sign the bill and it becomes a law. He can also "pocket veto" the bill (which is basically doing nothing) and if Congress is not in session it doesn't become a law or if they are in session, after 10 days the bill will become a law automatically.

6. Bill = Law
- So hopefully the bill you wanted passed through all of these steps and was signed by the President (willingly or unwillingly) and your bill is now a law that will be enforced! YAYYYY!



However, there may be differences in the way state's have bills become a state law. For example, in Minnesota, the bill can be introduced in either Senate or House, and then goes to the other one after its first review. It doesn't need to start in House. But the process is the same, the steps just can go in a different order.

*Committee Breakdown

The U.S House of Representatives has 26 different committees. Each committee has a different topic and in each committee the members research their topics and the bill pertains to their specific group.

For example, some major committees are: Agriculture, Armed Services, Energy and Commerce, Homeland Security, Education and the Workforce, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Veteran's Affairs.

Also here is a video of a catchy-tune and an easy breakdown of how a bill becomes a law. Who doesn't love Schoolhouse Rock.