Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Portal, North Dakota, be, and is hereby, designated a subport of entry in the customs collection district of North and South Dakota, and that the privileges of the first section of the Act approved June tenth, eighteen hundred and eighty, entitled "An Act to amend the statutes in relation to the immediate transportation of dutiable goods, and for other purposes," be, and the same are hereby, extended to said subport. Approved, Audition Speaker of the House of Representatives. Ilcodore Roosevelt Mathie President of the Senate pro tempore. THE FORM OF A LAW and each side is coupted. (3) If one fifth of the members wish to have the roll call, the clerk reads the names alphabetically, the vote of each being recorded. When the roll is called unexpectedly, there is always an interesting hunt for the members of the House who may be in the building, but not in the legislative hall. votes. Gov't, § 115. An active canvass for votes may be necessary in order Ways of to insure the passage of a measure. Votes for one bill are securing often secured by promising support for another, a practice known as "log rolling." It is safe to say that earnest Hart, Actual personal appeal exerts more influence than public debate. With party measures which fail to interest all the members of the dominant party, various tactics are employed to gain the support of those likely to oppose the bill. Among the means used to this end, the most effective consists in holding a caucus of all the party members belonging to the House. If the caucus indorses the bill, a full party vote is assured, as few men will vote against their party under such circumstances. A kind of "filibustering" used on former notable occasions is now forbidden by the rules of the House. As organized in December, 1889, the House contained a very small majority of Republicans, and, owing to the absence of several members, Speaker Reed was able to obtain a quorum only by counting Democrats who were present, but who refused to vote. This action was opposed at the time with great vigor, and gave the Speaker the title of "Czar Reed," yet ever since members present but not voting have been counted. Lodge, Hist. and Pol. Essays, 169-179. Organization of the House, LI Congress 300. The Bill in the Second Chamber. When a bill has Unaltered been passed by one house and signed by the presiding officer bills. of that body, it is sent to the other chamber where the three readings, the reference to a committee, and the discussion will be repeated. If it is approved by this house without alteration, it is signed and sent to the President, but if amended in any particular, it must be returned to the house which passed the original bill, because the measure must be adopted by the two houses in exactly the same form. Substitute bills. Conference McCona Committees, 245-254. The second house may even go so far as to substitute for the original bill an entirely different one relating to the same subject. This was done by the Senate in the closing days of the first session of the Fifty-seventh Congress, in regard to an interoceanic canal. The House bill provided for the construction of a canal across Nicaragua, and the Senate substituted the Panama route, with the proviso, that, if no clear title could be obtained to the Panama route, the President should be authorized to construct the canal by way of Nicaragua. Strangely enough, the Senate bill passed the House by an overwhelming majority, but in such cases it is usually necessary to resort to a conference committee. A conference committee is composed of an equal number committees. of members from each house of Congress, selected for the sole purpose of reconciling the differences between the Senate and House bills upon a particular subject. Each chie, Cong. chamber usually selects three of its best men as its representatives, choosing those who have been most interested in its bill. The conference committee may select the Senate or House bill in toto, but this is unusual. The compromise bill reported by the committee is very often accepted by both houses without discussion or amendment, although a second conference may be required, or the bill may be defeated in one or both houses. The ordinary veto. Constitu tion, Art. I, § 7, cls. 2, 3. Bryce, Am. Commonwealth, abr. ed., 163-165. 301. The Presidential Veto. When a bill has been presented to the President for his signature, he is allowed by law ten days, exclusive of holidays and Sundays, in which to sign it. If he fails to sign it or return it to Congress within that time, it becomes a law without his signature. Bills which he disapproves are returned to the house in which they originated, with a message giving the reasons for his veto. A vetoed bill must command a two-thirds vote in each house before it becomes a law. This majority very few measures can obtain, especially with the weight of the President's disapproval against them. In fact, but one bill was passed over the President's veto before 1866, although we must remember that the chief executives of those days were much more chary of using the veto than in these later times, when Congress enacts laws with greater haste. A bill passed less than ten days before the adjournment The pocket of Congress does not become a law unless actually signed by veto. the President. Neglect in cases of this kind is equivalent to a veto, the name pocket veto being popularly applied to the practice. On account of the large number of bills which are passed during the closing days of a session, the President may be able to exercise an undue influence upon legislation. Many of these bills are, however, hastily drawn and ill-considered, so that on the whole their failure does not injure the public. of the committees. Hart, Actual Gov't, § 109. 302. The Committee System. The most distinctive fea- Importance ture of congressional procedure is the use of committees in making laws. The committees are the center and life of Congress, doing the larger part of the work in framing important bills, — although these may be actually introduced by individual members, -in investigating subjects before either house, and in concentrating the discussion in the chambers upon a few vital questions. The House places a much greater dependence upon committees than the Senate,2 as 1 The committees are usually composed of from ten to fifteen members, some having as few as three, and others, in the House, as many as eighteen, the largest Senate committee numbering seventeen. The majority of each committee belongs to the dominant party, except for a few unimportant Senate committees; but every member of the House is on at least one committee, and every senator is assigned to not less than four. A few representatives are connected with three or even four committees, and many senators work on six or seven. In the House, the committees are selected by the Speaker, and in the Senate the appointments are made by the whole Senate (§ 205). In both houses, the member whose name appears first on the list of committeemen is the chairman. 2 The House of Representatives has two Committees of the Whole, one of which deals with financial bills and the other with private bills. When the House resolves itself into a Committee of the Whole, the Speaker always calls some one else to the chair, as he sometimes does in the House proper. But the presiding officer cannot make any one attend the com X Bryce, Am. wealth, abr. ed., 115-119. The commitment of bills. McCona chie, Cong. Committees, 116-121. Committees at work. McCona chie, Cong. Committees, 56-86. it is much larger. Standing committees have been used in the House from the beginning, whereas the earliest permanent committee of the Senate dates from 1816. So numerous are the committees that their duties frequently overlap. Many bills may, therefore, be assigned to any one of two or more committees. There is often a sharp contest between chairmen for the control of important measures, and, as the different committees would be likely to make very different reports, the right to decide which shall have it is of the first importance. In the House, this power belongs to the Speaker, but, in the Senate, it is reserved by the chamber, although ordinarily exercised by the presiding officer. The committees usually hold their meetings upon certain mornings, many of them having separate rooms for this purpose. The sessions are supposed to be secret, but are not strictly so, although no records of their proceedings are published. Most of the work at these meetings is done by the members of the majority, whose leaders, in fact, often arrange all important details beforehand. Subcommittees are frequently appointed to examine and report upon special features of a bill. In the regular sessions, the committees hear the reports of individuals or of these subcommittees, listen to the statements of business men whose line of work would be affected by the committee's action, examine experts, confer with subordinate officials of some executive department of the government, and discuss the bills under consideration. mittee, neither does he have the right to maintain order by force. The quorum, instead of being one half the members, is only one hundred. As sessions of the Committees of the Whole are held for the express purpose of debating proposed laws, speech is not subject to the same limitations as in the House. When a committee has finished the business in hand, it rises and reports to the House, which is in no way bound by the action of the committee. |