![]() It may not apply to Bill, but reconciliation is famously the vehicle used to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010 - a move denounced as inappropriate by many conservatives. ![]() There’s also reconciliation, a maneuver used to pass major budget and taxation measures that only requires a straight majority of senators to support it. Of course, there’s the filibuster: if 41 senators decided they do not like Bill, they could stall a vote on him. In the byzantine Senate, there are even more ways a bill can be expedited or blocked - none of which, shockingly, merit mention in Schoolhouse Rock’s tale. As we saw earlier this year with the Confederate flag amendment on a key appropriations bill, amendments have the power to throw a wrench into the process. For one, there’s the amendment process: on many bills, members - sometimes at the direction of leadership - can place amendments to the bill to be voted on before the main bill is considered. Schoolhouse Rock, being a program aimed at children, is not heavy on the details, but a presidential veto is hardly the only thing that can go awry after a bill is put to a vote. Here, Schoolhouse Rock isn’t wrong: it’s rare for a bill to survive after a veto: the last one to do so was in 2008, when a Democratic Congress pushed a Medicare expansion past the Bush White House. “By that time, it’s very unlikely you become a law,” the kid says. That’s true, but then Congress can override that veto with enough support. Bill says he is being put to a vote in the House of Representatives, then in the Senate, and then he’ll be sent to the White House to be signed by the president.īill explains that even if the whole Congress supports a law, the president can still veto it. Slow down there, Bill: in the span of a few seconds, the song dashes through a good chunk of the legislative process while glossing over some important details. Out of the 5,654 bills introduced in the 114th Congress so far, 311 have made it out of committee and onto the floor of a chamber for consideration. A current member, writing anonymously in Vox, called committees “a waste of time.” “Why develop any expertise as a committee member if your decisions will only be overridden by party leadership?” asks the member.īill does get one thing right here: most bills’ final resting place is committee. Unsurprisingly, this has led to big attendance problems: many members of Congress have a hard time showing up to important committee hearings. And they have a lot of sway in getting members to vote leadership’s way. Today, thanks to a number of factors - campaign cash, emphasis on issue messaging, the constant news cycle - party leaders decide what goes to the floor for consideration. In the 1970s, when Bill was introduced to American kids, the chairmen of powerful committees like Appropriations and Ways and Means were the titans of Capitol Hill. Why? The short answer is that, since the 1990s, the balance of power has gradually shifted toward party leadership and away from committees. But in recent years, committees have proven unable to get even basic tasks completed, like funding the nation’s highways for longer than a year. In theory, it’s how the committee process is supposed to work, and the way it worked for decades. Only if they can agree and present a satisfactory version of him to Congress will they bring him to the floor. Slumping outside the door of the committee chamber, he explains that key congressmen are discussing and debating him. McCoy, the next step in Bill’s journey is the committee process, a critical stop on the path from bill to law. Having been duly dreamed up by constituents and created by Rep. it’s a good time to ask: in what ways is the Schoolhouse Rock classic a relic of a time when Congress actually worked? Let’s start at the beginning: With four legislative days until the government runs out of funding - and the possibility for weekend negotiations in D.C. These days, the big story is less how a bill becomes a law, but more how a divisive issue becomes a government shutdown: the possibility of a shutdown as conservatives push for federal action on the Planned Parenthood videos is just the latest example. A version updated to reflect the political environment of 2015 would probably poison politics for a generation of American children. ![]() Unfortunately, though, years of congressional dysfunction have rendered the song so antiquated that it may no longer be useful. “I’m Just a Bill,” which explained how a bill becomes law in Congress, has become a touchstone of civic education for generations of American schoolchildren. In 1976, Schoolhouse Rock made an adorable, iconic character out of a pathetic scrap of paper with one signature tune. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |