TCC Analysis • August 6, 2024
By Art Harman, Senior Vice President – Policy · August 6, 2024
A “bill” is a proposed law, and a “resolution” is generally a non-binding proposed statement of the opinion of Congress.
A law is in its simplicity anything you can be arrested for violating, to force you to do or not do something, to order or fund the government to do or not do something. Thousands of bills are written and introduced every year.
Few bills are good and most are dangerous in greater or lesser degree to our liberties; and only a few hundred are eventually passed and become a law or an official statement. The path to passage is of course made much more difficult for bills mandating true constitutional government, cutting spending, ending abortion, stopping illegal immigration, etc.
The text of bills can be written by Congressmen, their staff, committee staff, lobbyists and special interests, the White House, and occasionally even by civic activists like yourself.
It then is reviewed by lawyers and policy experts, and regardless of who wrote it, a Congressman or Senator will then submit it in his name as the sponsor. Usually, a bill is submitted with the names of additional supporters, known as ‘cosponsors,’ and the more cosponsors a bill has at the start or who sign on later, the more regard the bill is given–particularly if a majority have signed onto the bill.
Once reviewed and ready for submission, a bill is put in “the hopper” (just a box) on the House or Senate floor, and then it is usually given a sequential number such as H.R. 1234 or S. 2345. H.R. stands for House of Representatives and S. is for Senate.
After a bill has been introduced, it will be assigned to one or more subcommittees that specialize in the subject of the bill. The text of the bill and names of cosponsors will then be posted on Congress.gov, where you can track its progress.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
The most effective actions you can take once a bill has been introduced are to:
- Gather additional cosponsors: Call your Senators or Representative and ask them to cosponsor the bill. Offer to email the link to the text on Congress.gov if they aren’t familiar with it.
- Gain support in the subcommittee. You can assist by asking your rep to talk to the committee members about the bill.
- Get the subcommittee chairman to schedule a hearing and a vote. You can’t do this yourself, but you can ask your member to talk to the chairman.
- Promote on social media the above steps to pass or defeat the bill.
For liberal bills, the steps would be reversed: Alert Members that a liberal bill should not receive hearings, gain cosponsors or be voted upon.
Who should you talk to? When you call your congressional office, don’t just ask the receptionist to record your support for or against a bill, but ask to speak to the ‘Legislative Assistant’ who handles (the subject of the bill). That’s the person who advises the member about that issue.
Asking members not on the committee to simply vote for/against it is premature, as no vote will take place or even be scheduled until it has survived subcommittee and committee votes.
The best request to your Senators and Representatives would be to ask them to cosponsor the bill and get their colleagues to cosponsor it as well. If the subcommittee approves it, it may advance to the committee. Then support must be built for a full committee vote.
Only if it passes in the committee could it then be scheduled for a vote by the entire House or Senate–if the leadership likes it.
While the rules of the House and Senate are complex, and many originated in the early days of our republic, this brief review—and next week’s second half, will give you the basics you need to be a more successful grassroots activist.
Grassroots Americans CAN help pass or defeat a bill. You can use these instructions with any bill, and TCC will send you alerts on bills we need to pass or defeat. The overall concepts here will work in state legislatures.
Next Week: Read Part II about the ‘insider details.’
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