Civics textbooks draw the path of a bill as a tidy flowchart. Real legislation is messier, and most of it never reaches the end. Knowing the formal steps still helps, because it shows where a bill can be stopped, how it can be changed and why news about a vote often means less than it first appears.
This explainer describes the process, which is the same for bills from any party. It takes no position on any proposal.
How a bill begins
Only members of Congress can introduce legislation, though an idea can come from anywhere: constituents, interest groups, a presidential administration, a state official, a think tank. A bill is introduced in the House or the Senate, receives a number such as H.R. 1234 or S. 567, and is referred to the committee with jurisdiction over its subject. The Constitution’s first article requires revenue bills to originate in the House, and by long custom spending bills do too.
Resolutions work differently. Simple and concurrent resolutions express the view of one or both chambers and do not become law, while joint resolutions go to the President and do.
What committees do
Committees are where the detailed work happens. The relevant committee, and often a subcommittee, may hold hearings to gather testimony, then hold a “markup” session to debate and amend the text. If a majority approves, the committee “reports” the bill to the full chamber. Many bills stop here, because the committee chair, who generally comes from the majority party, controls the agenda and decides which bills move.
Committee reports and hearing records are public, and they are often the best source for what the authors say a bill is supposed to do.
The floor: House and Senate rules differ
In the House, the Rules Committee typically sets the terms of debate for major bills, including how much time is allowed and which amendments may be offered. A simple majority of members present and voting passes a bill.
In the Senate, rules give individual senators much more power. Debate is usually open-ended unless limited by unanimous consent or by a vote of “cloture,” which ends debate. Cloture on most legislation requires the support of three-fifths of senators, or 60 of 100, which is why many bills need more than a bare majority to advance in practice. This is what people mean by the “filibuster,” though the modern version is typically the threat of one. Supporters say the 60-vote threshold forces compromise and protects minority rights, and critics say it lets a minority block measures a majority supports. Both views are widely held.
There is one major exception. Budget reconciliation, a special process connected to the annual budget, allows certain tax and spending measures to pass the Senate with a simple majority, subject to restrictions, including the “Byrd rule,” which bars provisions that are extraneous to the budget.
Getting the two chambers to agree
The House and Senate must pass identical text. If they pass different versions, they can negotiate: one chamber may accept the other’s bill, they may exchange amended versions back and forth, or they may appoint a conference committee of members from both chambers to produce a compromise. The resulting text must then be approved again by each chamber.
What can the President do?
Once both chambers have passed the same bill, it goes to the President, who has several options:
- Sign it, and it becomes law.
- Do nothing. If Congress is in session, the bill becomes law without a signature after ten days, Sundays excepted.
- Veto it, sending it back with objections.
- Pocket veto by taking no action if Congress adjourns during the ten-day period, which prevents the bill from becoming law.
Congress can override a veto if two-thirds of both the House and the Senate vote to pass the bill again. Overrides are rare because they require broad agreement.
After a bill becomes law
Public laws are numbered by Congress, such as Public Law 118-5, and compiled in the United States Code. Many laws leave the details to executive agencies, which write regulations under the Administrative Procedure Act. Agencies usually publish a proposed rule, take public comments and then issue a final rule. Courts can review whether a rule is consistent with the statute, and who hears such cases depends on the type of claim, as explained in federal courts versus state courts.
Congress also has to fund what it authorizes. A law may create a program, but money for it comes through a separate annual process, a topic covered in how federal funding and shutdowns work.
Where bills get stuck
- No committee action. Most bills never get a hearing or a vote.
- Time. Floor time, especially in the Senate, is limited, and leaders choose priorities.
- Vote counts. Leaders will not bring up a bill they expect to lose.
- Differences between chambers. Reconciling House and Senate text can take months.
- The end of the session. Bills die at the end of each two-year Congress and must be reintroduced.
Can anyone track a bill?
Congress.gov, run by the Library of Congress, posts the text, status, sponsors, committee actions and votes for every bill, free of charge. When a news story reports that a chamber “passed” something, check whether the other chamber has acted and whether the text is identical. Passage in one chamber is a milestone, not the finish line.
Election laws also come from this process, though most rules are set by states, as shown in who runs elections in the United States.
Sources: U.S. Constitution; Congress.gov; Library of Congress; Congressional Research Service; U.S. House of Representatives; U.S. Senate
