Students take law into own hands
Government classes provide seniors the opportunity to see the law-making process in action
By Shevy Chaganti
April 25, 2008
In order to simulate the process of how a bill becomes a law in the U.S. legislative system, government classes wrote and passed their own mock bills. The activity usually takes place around springtime every year.
Students were divided into House and Senate groups to argue the bills that they researched and wrote themselves.
“I think it was really interesting seeing other people fight over [the bills] and how we started arguing over different things just because of one viewpoint,” senior Kelsay Arnsmeyer said.
After the bills went through a class congress, they were given to the class representation of the “president” - the teacher.
There were a few minor differences between the class representation and the actual process, but for the most part, the process mimicked the real procedure.
According to government teacher Ken Prowell, “it is hard to simulate it to the same level,” but things such as the percentage of bills passed through and the time constraints were very similar.
The government teachers who participated in this activity were Victor Scott, James Smith, Matthew Miles, Joseph Clement, Prowell and Matthew Stoner.
“This has been going on for a long time,” Clement said. “My experience has been over the last ten years that at the end of the year, the topic students understand better than others is ‘How does a bill become a law?’”
School process |
Real life process: |
The process the students went through:
- Students researched and wrote their bills which were topics of personal interest.
- Students researched how bills are approached in congress
- Papers turned into the teacher
- Students had to write a formal bill
- The class was divided by party Majority were democrats so they got leadership of the House.
- The bills went to congress where there was a full house vote.
- Accepted bills were sent to the “president” (the class teacher) where he had the power to veto or pass.
Top five bills passed by students
- Rescheduling drugs: Re-categorizing the drugs so that the consequences are proportional to the danger of the drug. For example: Marijuana and Heroin both call for the same jail time and penalties.
- Lower drinking to 18: Federal law is that the drinking age is 18 but the States have their legal age as 21. The government only gives rewards to the States if they make their drinking age 21.
- Stem Cell research
- Legalizing marijuana
- Sex Education and Abstinence being taught in schools
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- A member of Congress must introduce a bill to Congress.
- Bills are then passed on to a correlating, specific committee of Congress, where they are debated.
- If a bill is approved, it moves on to a subcommittee where the bill is debated at a public hearing. If not, it dies.
- Bills that the subcommittees approve are then “marked up” and recommended to the full committee to await a further decision.
- The committee can either discuss and deliberate for more time or vote on whether the bill will move further or not. If it passes, then it is “reported,” written, and published.
- The bill is placed on the calendar for the House/Senate for scheduled ‘floor action,’ or debate after which it is voted on.
- If the bill is passed, it moves on to a chamber where the bill may be approved, rejected, ignored or amended. If the bill is changed a lot, it is sent to a conference committee.
- The conference committee is made up of representatives from both Chambers and the bill is discussed until both houses can agree on the same version of a bill. If they are able to, it is sent to the President.
- The president has three options. He can sign it, and turn the bill into a law; veto, or reject, the bill; or ignore it. If he takes no action for 10 days while Congress is in session, then the bill will automatically become a law.
- In order to override a veto, 2/3 of Congress must vote to approve the bill.
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