I, like many others I’m sure, got my civics education from
cartoons. (That’s not entirely true,
actually; I had a solid civics class in high school, but the teacher didn’t
sing the lessons, so they’re not stuck in my memory…) If you ask me to envision the legislative
process, for example, I can describe to you the process by which a bill becomes
law in the Federal government, but only if I start by envisioning Bill the bill
sitting dejectedly on the steps of Congress, bemoaning his low status and
dreaming of one day becoming a Law. (Sort
of like grad school, but with a catchy tune…)
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| Bill the bill, and unnamed non-voter. |
For those who weren’t paying attention during Schoolhouse
Rock, the process is: An idea developed by a constituency is called into Congress
by engaged citizenry, and the responsible congressman (manning his own phone)
agrees and types up a bill (on his own typewriter!) If it’s one of “the lucky ones”, the bill
might be sent into committee (which is good for Bill because the other bills
look like a dangerous bunch of characters) where the congressmen argue over
it. If the bill is reported favorably
out of committee, the bill goes to the floor of the House. If not, it dies. (Poor Bill!)
Then they vote on the bill, and if the bill passes, it goes to the
Senate and the “whole thing starts all over again”. (“OH NO!” “OH YES!”) And if the Senate passes
the bill, it goes to the President, who can still veto the bill, but let’s be
honest, at this point in the video, we’re pretty sure it’ll be a happy ending,
I mean, it is an educational cartoon…
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| Bill the bill celebrates becoming a Law with his new friends! |
(Yeah, I actually rewatched the video for this synopsis, and
I have to say, it holds up pretty well.
You can watch it here if
you like…)
Last week, I received a briefing on the actual legislative
process from a member of the Congressional Research Service, CRS, which happens
to have the same acronym as the Consumer Recreation Services, the all-powerful
corporation from the film “The Game” starring Michael Douglas, which makes the
whole thing all the more awesome. (I
love that film. Did you notice that
Daniel Schorr plays himself as a cable news reporter? You know, the one who suddenly starts talking
directly to Michael Douglas whilst Douglas is poking around at a large wooden clown
with a butter knife? I love that
film.) Anyway, the actual CRS briefed us
on the legislative process, and it’s a bit more complicated.
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| Daniel Schorr, as himself in The Game, representing the non-Congressional CRS, masquerading as a television reporter for CFN, which is definitely not NPR. Carl Kasell, eat your heart out. |
So, at the risk of putting some actual information into this
Blog, I thought I’d share a couple things I learned about the House and the
Senate that were not shared by Bill in Schoolhouse Rock. Caveat: this is mostly from my notes during
the discussion, and subject to the vagaries of ignorance. Except the part about the Speaker. That bit I copied word for word.
The House
If Bill was first brought up in the House, then he’d do well
to stop hoping that one day he’ll be a Law, and instead take the Speaker of the
House out to dinner. Because there ain’t
no way he’s getting anywhere without some help in that front. The Speaker sets the agenda, baby, so he or
she can easily bury any piece of nascent legislation he or she desires, whether
said legislation sings the blues or not.
(Particularly musically ambitious Speakers might demand that you can’t leave the House without singing
the blues.)
And that reminds me, I learned something that blew all the
hell up my freaking mind:
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| Consequences of not being permitted to leave the House without singing the blues. |
THE SPEAKER OF THE
HOUSE DOESN’T NEED TO BE A CONGRESSPERSON.
You read me right.
The Speaker of the House, that almighty Lord and Commander of the People’s
House, who sets the agenda and determines the fate of every piece of
legislation with god-like precision, doesn’t even need to be a member of the
House. I’m not sure if the rules are
particularly specific with regard to qualifications – age, nationality, etc. –
but according to the Congressional Research Service, which I have already noted
are the official know-it-alls of Congress – the Speaker can basically be anyone
that the House votes to control their agenda.
I just wonder what would happen if the House Rules dictated that the
Speaker of the House could not be a member of Congress. Perhaps nothing, since they’d presumably
still be voted in on party lines, but still…
By the way, the House apparently lives and dies by the Rules,
according to CRS. However, whenever they
actually want to discuss a piece of legislation, a strange thing happens: They
have to ask to suspend the rules:
“Mister Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1234) to rename the fire hydrant at 1745 Palmetto Drive in Oakdale, California, to “Alfred P Newman Memorial Hydro-Safety Implement”, as amended.”
And the rules being suspended, the Representatives only have
40 minutes to debate, no amendments, and the bill must pass with a two-thirds
majority. Which, if it’s one of any
number of the small bits of business that the House takes care of in consideration
of their constituents, shouldn’t be too tough to accomplish. Probably.
But that’s why that’s the easy way.
If you actually want to pass something substantive, that’s a
whole other bucket of fish. For that,
you need Special Rules. (Apparently, you
never use the “Plain-old, Boring, Regular Rules”.) In this case, the Bill must be passed to the
Rules Committee, which creates the rules under which the bill will be
considered. This includes which and how
many amendments will be considered, how much time everybody gets (and who gets
time), etc. It would seem that this
committee is pretty important, and so also the importance of its makeup: 9 from
the majority party, 4 from the minority party.
Yet another way in which the majority party gets profound power in the
House. (If you’re in a third party, who
knows?) If there’s a piece of
legislation brought up by the majority that you want to amend or seriously debate,
and you’re in the minority, there’s a very real chance that you’ll never have
the chance to debate or amend.
One other means of bringing up a bill: Committee of the
Whole House. That’s basically a
committee that, by default, consists of everybody in the House of
Representatives. Why do this? Well, it was explained this way to me: When
you’re on the House floor, the Rules can be pretty generous with regard to
speaking time. Under the Committee of
the Whole House, however, each Representative only gets five minutes. And when you’ve got an entire room full of
(mostly) type-A lawyers, many with a background in speech and debate, limiting
floor speeches to five minutes seems like a pretty good idea.
Anyway, there are just a few interesting things I picked up
on the House. But Bill the Bill will
never realize his dream of becoming a Law without visiting…
The Senate
The most interesting thing I learned about the Senate, and
certainly a feature that distinguishes it from the House, is that it functions
on a concept of Unanimous Consent (UC).
That is, the Senate functions most smoothly when a Senator proposes
something and everyone agrees. Which
does sound nice. And apparently it does actually
happen, but there is some method to it.
Say you’re a Senator, and you want to take some kind of
action. You can ask for UC on that
action. After which the other Senators
have 10 minutes to respond. Silence
implies consent, literally. If there is
an objection, however, the UC is rejected.
And only one Senator has to object to reject a UC. So, obviously, it would be rather silly to
ask for UC on something for which you do not expect unanimous consent. And this actually reveals some still-extant
civility in government.
If you and I are on opposite sides of an issue, I may ask
for UC to bring the issue to the floor.
And I would hope for your consent in doing so; it doesn’t mean that we
agree on the issue, just that we agree to bring it to the floor. But if you’re not expecting me to bring it to
the floor – you’re not ready, you have other business to take care of, we haven’t
finished a compromise – you may respond by rejecting the UC. So it behooves me to discuss the issue with
you ahead of time, make sure you’re ready, and that we’ve nailed down the
framework for the debate.
(Interestingly, you may “reserve the right to object” to the
UC, granting us time to discuss the issue at greater length, rather than reject
the UC, outright. I’m not exactly sure
what this entails, though…)
As in the House, the UC itself may consist of a complex
agreement that specifies the amount of debate, who debates, specific times
limitations, amendments, and so on. However,
what if no UC can be reached for an issue?
It’s easy to imagine cases where at least one Senator wants to stonewall. Any Senator can talk for as long as he or she
wants and can remain standing. Obviously,
if people can’t get consent for the rules of debate or to end debate, all
business would come to a standstill. And
that’s why a Rule was created (Rule 22) to get business done and end debate in
the absence of UC through cloture.
Now I’ll admit that I’d heard the term cloture in the past
and never knew what it meant. Yet it’s
the basis for much of the debate about majority power and minority strength in
the Senate. So, here’s what it means:
- At least sixteen Senators must sign a petition to invoke cloture. The petition can immediately be presented and read (even interrupting the speaking Senator).
- Senators must file any remaining amendments on the issue within two sitting (working) days.
- Two sitting (working) days later, a quorum call is taken to determine the number of Senators available on the floor to vote, the President of the Senate presents the petition, and the Senate votes on it. Three-fifths of the number of sitting Senators must approve – note that that’s sitting Senators, not present Senators, meaning it doesn’t matter if they’re present or not: they still count – unless the Senate Rules are being changed, in which case two-thirds of sitting Senators must approve. Hence, 60 Senators to break a filibuster through cloture.
- If cloture is passed, remaining debate is limited to 30 hours, no Senator may speak for more than one hour, only amendments submitted between the petition read and vote may be moved and they must be germane to the issue, certain procedural motions are disallowed, and no other issues may be considered until the issue is completed.
- The Senate can then vote on the issue according to whatever rules are applicable, thus ending debate and bringing the issue to a vote regardless of UC.
So, that’s cloture.
Now you know.
Bill’s Blues
So, Bill is right to be concerned about his prospects at
becoming Law. Still, after going through
this process (and let me repeat the caveat that this is all based on my notes
and I apologize for any errors), I think there is a lot to be said for a
process that remains flexible to changes in legislation, sentiment, majorities
and movements, while keeping the government from moving too quickly. For all we complain about how slowly Congress
operates, and they do seem to be operating very slowly right now, the big
advantage of the system right now is the same as it was in the beginning: give
our representatives in Congress the power to carry out their responsibilities,
while reducing the danger of going tyrannical through overreach.
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| Good luck, Bill. |
Bill will just have to be patient.
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