How A Bill Becomes A law Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

How A Bill Becomes A law - Term Paper Example This information can be used to better the nation, local community, career, and life as it moves forward. All Roads Lead to Congress is a case study of the proposal and passage of H.R. 3: Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA - LU) from the 109th Congress 2005 - 2006. This case study is presented from two different authors’ perspectives. One author is a political scientist, Costas Panagopoulos, and the other is an urban planner, Joshua Schank, who has been involved in transportation his entire career. Schank was Senator Hillary Clinton’s transportation fellow being brought in from Columbia University specifically to help work on this bill specifically. The book is organized by chapters telling the reader simply, â€Å"How a bill becomes law; bill introduction and markup; floor fight; conference; back to the drawing board; passage and politics; and the aftermath. In Chapter one, The four P’s are discussed including power, proc ess, policy, pots of money (price). Members of congress are most concerned about getting re-elected and use position taking, credit claiming, and advertising to get ahead. The suggestion is made that politicians worry more and do more about advertising their pork barrel projects than they do about passing solid pieces of legislation. Since their primary concern from day one in office is with getting re-elected, every move they make centers on that issue, the entire time they are in office. Public opinion of Congress as a whole is typically low, but constituent approval of some individual members of Congress is high. Transportation is a popular place to include pork barrel projects. There is a lot of detail provided in each chapter about what happens behind the scenes in the Congressional process, regarding deadlines, extensions of deadlines, â€Å"constituent meeting†, â€Å"surrogate meeting†, stall tactics, additional conversations, and so on, all in an effort to get a working piece of legislation that a bi-partisan group will be comfortable passing (p. 31). This bill was introduced in the house May 14, 2003 and was signed into law August 10, 2005 by President Bush. The final act was passed before the bridge collapse in Minnnesota on August 1, 2007, on I-35W at the height of rush hour. The bridge, as well as fifty vehicles, fell into the Mississippi River. Five people were killed. The investigation showed that popular, new roads and projects were funded, while the mundane, routine and maintenance projects were neglected. This was not the direct cause of the accident, but transportation has been bankrolling many other projects than the maintenance and safety of the existing roadways for years. The path taken by the highway funding bill followed the schematic in Figure 1.1 on page 6 of Panagopoulos and Schank. The bill is draft and proposed to both the House and the Senate. The Senate and House have committees that the bill goes to. In the commit tees the bill is marked up and reported out back to the Senate or the House with recommended changes. The bill then goes to the House rules committee. The bill post revisions makes its’ way back to the Senate and House floor for discussion, which if proceeding forward, follows with conference meetings to reconcile the differences between the Senate and the House. The