So you want to know how a bill becomes a law?
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For a bill to become a law it must go through a very long and difficult process. (See picture to the right for a summed down version.) First of a bill is introduced by a congressman in either the house or the senate. For the sake of making this easier we will start with the bill being introduced in the Senate. In the senate the bill is introduced by a senate member where it is put on the first read list. Once the bill has had its reading it is put into a inbox to be organized into a couple of the categories. These different categories are the different committees that the bill could be sent to. Once a bill has a committee that it is sent to the committee takes the bill and looks it over. From here the committee can change the bill if there are errors or ways to improve the bill or they could change the bill to meet the agenda of their political party or they could leave the bill alone. Something else that the committee could do is kill the bill by never getting to it. Once a bill has gone through committee the bill is debated over whether or not the committee substitute should be accepted or if the original bill should be voted on. Once a decision is made they will vote on whether or not to pass the bill. If it is passed the bill goes to the House, if the bill is not passed the bill is killed. Once the bill gets passed to the house the bill goes through essentially the same process. If the bill is to also pass the house of representatives then the bill goes to conferencing were the bill is debated by a select few from both the house and the senate. If the bill is lucky enough to pass this point the bill is passed on to the president were he will either sign the bill into law or veto it. If he vetoes the bill congress can try to get a super majority vote which will over ride his veto and the bill becomes law. However if it is the last 10 days of congress the president can pocket veto which means that the president ignores the bill till congress is out of session which in turn kills the bill. So you can see that it is very hard for a bill to become law!