The Speaker and the Committees.—The House of Representatives elects its own presiding officer, who is known as the Speaker. He has general charge of the proceedings and until a few years ago appointed all the committees. All questions of procedure are decided by him and he determines which member of the House shall be “recognized”, that is, permitted to speak, when several members desire to have the floor. The Speaker is always a prominent member of the majority party and usually one of its leaders. He has a considerable influence on the work of the House.
In a body of more than four hundred members, it stands to reason that a great deal of the business must be done by committees. There are now nearly sixty of these committees, the most important being those on rules, appropriations, ways and means, interstate and foreign commerce, post-offices, military affairs, naval affairs, and agriculture. |The committees: how selected.| Since 1910 these committees have been appointed by a complicated plan which places the selection in the hands of the whole House.[[115]] The majority party in the House obtains a majority on each important committee.
Stages in the making of a law:
The Process of Lawmaking.—The work of the committees may best be explained by describing the various stages through which a bill passes before it becomes a law. |1. Introduction of bill.| In the first place, any member of the House may introduce a bill (which is a draft of a proposed law) either for himself or for someone else. He does this by writing his name on the back of the bill and dropping it into a large basket at the Speaker’s table. During the course of each session many thousand bills are placed in this “hopper” as it is called. One of the Speaker’s assistants takes each bill from the basket and refers it to the proper committee. If the bill relates to taxation it goes to the Ways and Means Committee; if it relates to railroads it goes to the Committee on Foreign and Interstate Commerce. Every bill goes to some committee before the House looks at it.
2. Consideration by a committee.
When the various committees receive their bills they place them on a list for consideration and each is taken up in order unless the committee decides to give some bills the right of way. Hearings on the important measures are then held. The members of the committee meet in their committee room and listen to the arguments of those who desire to support or oppose the bill. Any citizen has the right to appear and be heard. Sometimes, in the case of some important bills, such as a tariff measure, the hearings may continue for several days or even for weeks. The committee hearings, however, are usually held in the mornings only, for the House is in session during the afternoons. When the hearings are concluded the committee decides what action it will take. It may recommend to the House that the bill ought to be passed, either with or without changes. Sometimes a committee completely redrafts a bill and reports it to the House in the entirely new form. But in the great majority of cases the committees feel unfavorably towards the bills and make no report or recommendation on these bills at all. |How bills are killed in committee.| Such measures are merely “killed in committee” and never get before the House. The House can, of course, require any committee to send up a bill; but this it hardly ever does. Most of the bills introduced by congressmen are put to death in this way; in fact more than eighty per cent of them never survive the committee stage.[[116]] One committee acquired such a reputation for slaughtering bills that its committee room was nicknamed the “legislative morgue”.
3. The committee’s report.
But let us suppose that a bill is favorably regarded by a committee and duly reported to the House. What happens next? It is placed on one of the calendars or lists; printed copies are made; and when its turn comes, it is laid before the House. A debate on the bill may take place, amendments may be proposed, and votes taken.
4. Consideration in the House.
In considering measures, the House often sits as a Committee of the Whole. This merely means that the entire membership forms a great committee, but there are some important differences between the House in Committee of the Whole and the regular session. In Committee of the Whole the Speaker does not preside (but calls some member to the chair); the strict rules of procedure do not apply; one hundred members form a quorum (in regular session a majority of the members are needed to furnish a quorum) and there are no roll calls. In a word, the system enables the House to do business with less formality. |5. Bills are then sent to the other chamber.| At any rate if the measure safely passes the House, it is engrossed on parchment, signed by the speaker, and sent up to the Senate where it goes through the whole procedure of committee hearings and discussion on the floor.[[117]]