Legislative Process
The legislative process refers to the series of steps through which a bill becomes law. It typically involves drafting a bill, committee review, debate, and voting in the legislative body. The process may also include amendments, reconciliation between different versions of the bill, and ultimately, approval by the executive branch.
6 Key excerpts on "Legislative Process"
eBook - ePub- S. A. Walkland(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Legislation is now an almost exclusively executive function, modified, sometimes heavily, by practices of group and Parliamentary consultation. As a result of this large measure of centralized political control of the process, it is possible in Britain for the executive to bring in scientifically planned programmes of legislative change, and to establish reasoned legislative priorities. On the other hand, the process is not one which occurs entirely along a chain of command and assent; powerful group pressures are exerted at all its stages, from the preparation of legislative projects, throughout the processes of scrutiny and criticism, and bear particularly heavily on the administrative stage when legislation is put into operation. The process of legislation could equally well be termed a continuous process of consultation, reconciling group and party interests to its objects, and acting as a powerful legitimating and integrating influence within the constitution....
eBook - ePubDemocratic Legislative Institutions: A Comparative View
A Comparative View
- David M. Olson(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Legislatures tend to be more active on the newer and more controversial issues, and on those that arouse disagreement among interest groups, and less active on older and less controversial issues. Policy Stages Policy proposals are frequently prepared within administrative agencies and/or by outside advisory commissions. While their proposals, especially if unanimous, may leave the parliament little choice in accepting the proposal, the very existence of an advisory commission is itself an opportunity for parliamentary awareness as well as participation. Once adopted, a policy is then implemented by one or more administrative agencies. It is at this stage that legislative activity is often found even in authoritarian political systems. Individual legislators can actively attempt to gain benefits for people and businesses within their constituency. Committees can review how the ministry has been implementing a policy throughout the whole country. Examination of policy at this stage of the policy cycle by legislatures is less threatening to executives than is involvement at earlier stages, which is why the prime minister permitted the British Parliament to create permanent committees for agency review but not for consideration of legislation (Johnson 1988; Norton 1981). It is the committee system of the U.S. Congress that permits Congress actively to initiate policy proposals, as well as to counter executive proposals effectively. Congress’s active formulation of future legislation is an exception because its committee system is an exception to the usual patterns in democratic legislatures (Moe and Teel 1970; Orfield 1975). Conclusions A legislature can be a working body. It can play a vital part in the governance of a state...
eBook - ePub- Robert J. McKeever, Philip Davies(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Part 5 The Legislative Process As we saw in Part 4, the office of the presidency looms large in the Legislative Process. Yet for all the importance of the presidency in proposing and drafting legislation, it is a basic fact of political life in the United States that only Congress can pass national laws. This means that the legislative efforts of the president, interest groups and, indeed, all political actors at the national level, must ultimately focus on the Congress. In Part 5, therefore, we examine the legislative power and role of Congress, especially in relation to the presidency (Chapter 14). We also examine the way Congress is organised and the impact that its internal structural and processes have on its legislative and other governmental functions (Chapter 15). Contents Chapter 14 Congress and the president Chapter 15 Congressional structures and processes Chapter 14 Congress and the president Congress and the president are rivals for political power generally, and legislative power in particular. To a considerable extent, this rivalry is a ‘zero-sum’ game: any increase in the power of one player inevitably means a corresponding loss of power for the other. Nevertheless, as a responsible national legislature, Congress cannot simply devote itself to institutional self-preservation. It must pass laws to advance the national interest and, to do this, it needs to cooperate with the president. In this chapter, we trace the origins and development of this ambiguous relationship with the presidency and assess the contemporary balance of power between the two. We also ask whether Congress is any longer either willing or able to provide legislative leadership for the country. Legislative power: the constitutional design Legislative power is the power to pass laws. It lies, therefore, at the heart of the policymaking process and, indeed, is a central attribute of what we more generally call political power...
eBook - ePub- Tony Storey, Alexandra Pimor(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...4 The Legislative Process AIMS AND OBJECTIVES After reading this chapter you should be able to: ■ Understand the different Legislative Processes ■ Understand the role of the institutions in the different Legislative Processes ■ Understand the context in which the different Legislative Processes operate ■ Analyse the reasons for the development of different processes ■ Evaluate the democratic effectiveness of the processes 4.1 The role of the institutions The process of legislating within EU law appears to be quite complex. One of the reasons for this is that all rules and procedures for legislating are laid down in the Treaties at different points. Every EU law is based on a specific Treaty Article, in this case referred to as the ‘legal basis’ of the legislation. The second reason is that there are different processes of legislating and the appropriate process depends on the particular area of the Treaty objectives that requires legislating. The process of legislating has been modified very significantly since the original Treaties, as the result of the different subsequent Treaties. The introduction of new legislative procedures arose from the criticism of the early Legislative Process that there was a so-called ‘democratic deficit’, in other words that those institutions that existed on the basis of appointment rather than election controlled the processes. This democratic deficit was considered to be particularly true of the role of Parliament which originally had little effect on the Legislative Process other than to suggest amendments...
eBook - ePubThe Constitution of Canada
A Contextual Analysis
- Jeremy Webber(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
...Instead, in large cities there are often city-specific parties or loose electoral alliances among candidates, while in smaller municipalities candidates generally compete as independents. Indigenous forms of government are highly diverse and becoming more so. We will examine their organization in chapter 8. The remainder of this chapter focuses on the legislative power exercised by the federal and provincial legislatures, together with the closely related territories. III. THE Legislative Process The legislatures at the federal and provincial levels are products of the British parliamentary tradition. Much of their internal structure and procedure remains a matter of tradition, never codified in Canada’s constitutional texts. Indeed, the legislative assemblies of the provinces other than Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta predate confederation and were simply continued thereafter. Assemblies in Ontario and Quebec were descended from the prior institutions of the Province of Canada; Manitoba’s assembly was organized as a result of pressure from the provisional government in the Red River; and Saskatchewan’s and Alberta’s were descended from the previous territorial legislature. There is substantial similarity among these legislatures. We will focus on the federal House of Commons, noting significant differences at the provincial level. In Canada’s parliamentary system, the members of the government (the Prime Minister and virtually all ministers; see chapter 4) are also Members of Parliament (MPs). The government manages the Legislative Process. It determines the timing of the session (the constitution requires that there be a sitting of each legislature at least once every 12 months). 16 It begins each session by setting forth its legislative agenda. It presents a budget and detailed estimates of spending for approval by Parliament each year...
eBook - ePub- Peter C. Ordeshook(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...1 Representation of Political Processes 1.1 The Basic Perspective We begin with the assertion that all of politics concerns the actions of people whose fates are interdependent, where the nature of that interdependency is determined in significant part by institutions we choose to call political. Such a characterization of politics may appear obvious or redundant, but it has profound consequences for the way we think about our subject. It implies that explanations of events focusing on the actions of a single individual, although perhaps contributing to our understanding, cannot provide a scientifically valid, causal explanation for those events. Arguing that the absence of a key legislator from a vote “caused” some bill to pass or fail ignores the fact that this absence is decisive only if the votes of others, as registered through specific institutional procedures, render that legislator’s vote pivotal. Attributing electoral defeat to a candidate’s stand on some issue ignores the fact that the defeat requires preferences among voters of a particular sort, it requires that voters be cognizant of the candidate’s position, it requires that the candidate’s opponent not be associated with an equally untenable position, and it presumes the existence of electoral procedures that allow more profitable campaign tactics. Judging an event such as the assassination of a national leader as the cause of a war commits the error of failing to see that an assassination, although perhaps a necessary condition for the outbreak of conflict, cannot be a sufficient condition: leaders must still decide between war and peace in light of their ultimate objectives, taking account of the responses of others to their actions, both in the international arena and domestically...
