Wyoming LAP Book - How a Bill becomes Law

HOW A BILL BECOMES LAW

      Bills (proposed laws) are drafted at the request of legislators by Wyoming's Legislative Service Office, the nonpartisan agency which staffs the Legislature.
      Unlike most other states, which have longer legislative sessions, Wyoming's legislators do not have personal staffs or offices.
      Once a bill is drafted and approved by the sponsoring legislator(s), it is "jacketed" - placed in a special folder which will hold the bill and all the paperwork documenting its journey through the legislative process.
      No action on the bill can be taken without the official jacketed version, and during rowdy legislative debates in the not-so-distant past, legislators have been known to take off with the bill jacket and thereby halt any further consideration.
      The Wyoming Constitution requires that all revenue bills originate in the House of Representatives. Otherwise, a bill may be introduced in either the House or the Senate, depending on the bill sponsor or strategy considerations.
      Sometimes identical bills are introduced in both houses in hopes that at least one stays alive.
      Any type of bill may be introduced during the Wyoming Legislature's general sessions, held for 40 days every odd-numbered year.
      Introduction of a non-budget bill during the 20-day budget sessions, held every even- numbered year, requires a two-thirds vote of approval in the house of introduction.

Committee Action
      It is the responsibility of the Speaker of the House or the President of the Senate to assign a bill to a committee. This is usually a straightforward process, but sometimes bills do not fall into an obvious category, or are assigned to a different committee than one would expect for strategic reasons or because of unequal workloads.
      The committee chair has complete discretion over action on bills in his/her committee. The chair is not required to hear bills in the order assigned, or even to hear them at all.
      Committee meetings and the bills to be considered are posted on bulletin boards outside the House and Senate chambers, with notice varying from a few days to a few hours.
      The committee meetings are public, but the small committee meeting rooms, short notice, and overall pace of legislative action during the short sessions limits public participation. Usually, if a controversy is anticipated, committee chairs will attempt to schedule a larger room in another building and provide more notice of the hearing.
      Committees may make one of three recommendations on a bill: (1) "do pass"; (2) "do pass with amendments"; or (3) "do not pass." If a bill is heavily amended in committee, a substitute bill may be prepared and offered on the floor.
      A "do not pass" recommendation effectively kills a bill by sending it to the bottom of general file (see below); the same result can be achieved if the committee chair simply sits on the bill until it is too late for consideration on the floor.
      Beginning with the 1993-94 biennium, final committee votes on bills which were subsequently debated on the floor were printed in the legislative journals.
      Otherwise, votes in committee, even roll call votes, are not permanently recorded. After the session, they are left with the committee secretaries to be kept at home or thrown away.

Floor Debate
      "General file" is the list of bills which have cleared committees and are awaiting consideration by the entire House or Senate. The Majority Floor Leader controls the order of general file, which may change from day to day.
      Wyoming's short legislative sessions usually guarantee that bills at the bottom of general file will die for lack of time; thus the Majority Floor Leader may single-handedly assure the demise of certain bills by putting them at the end of the list.
      A bill heard on the floor goes through three readings: Committee of the Whole, Second Reading, and Third Reading (Final Passage). These readings occur on consecutive days unless a bill is "laid back" or the legislators vote to suspend the rules.
      Committee of the Whole is designed to be a freewheeling debate where questions are answered and thoughts aired. Consequently, there are no time limits on debate or the number of times a legislator may speak.
      The bill may be amended - sometimes beyond recognition - yet no votes are recorded on the amendments. If the bill does not receive enough voice or standing votes at the end of Committee of the Whole debate to go on to second reading, a roll call vote is recorded.
      Second Reading is usually a mere formality, although amendments may be offered and voted on. There may be limits on the number of times a legislator may speak, and for how long. Roll call votes may be taken on amendments if a member requests them.
      The Wyoming Constitution requires that roll call votes be taken on final passage of a bill (the end of Third Reading). Roll call votes may also be taken on third reading amendments by request. Legislators may speak only twice on the same action and time limits may be set.

Conference Committees
      Once a bill is approved in the house of origin, it must go through the same process all over again in the other house. If the bill passes both houses and the final two versions differ, the bill returns to the house of origin for a "concurrence" vote.
      If the house of origin does not concur with the version enacted by the second house, a conference committee is appointed to try to resolve the differences.
      The conference committee consists of three members from each house appointed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate; each set of three includes two members who voted for the bill and one who did not. (For budget bills, special conference committees with larger memberships are created.)
      The first conference committee is usually "bound" - it may only remove or alter amendments made by one house or the other. Subsequent "free" conference committees may make changes in the original bill.
      Each report from a conference committee must be voted on by both houses, starting with the house of origin.
      A bill may clear all the hurdles necessary to become law and falter at the very end because a conference committee cannot reach an acceptable compromise or simply runs out of time to try.

Role of Legislative Committees
      Each house of the Wyoming Legislature has 12 "standing" committees - permanent committees covering specific subject areas. These include:

Judiciary

Appropriations

Revenue

Education

Agriculture, Public Lands & Water Resources

Travel, Recreation, Wildlife & Cultural Resources

Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions

Transportation & Highways

Minerals, Business & Economic Development

Labor, Health & Social Services

Rules & Procedure(s)

Journal

      Following introduction of a bill, the Speaker of the House or the President of the Senate refers the bill to one of the standing committees.
      As noted earlier, committees are not required to consider all bills referred to them, nor must they consider bills in the order referred. The committee chair controls what will be considered and when.
      Although bills technically cannot be killed in committee, they can be returned with a "do not pass" recommendation - which means they will not be brought up for debate - or held in committee until it is too late to bring them to the floor.
      The majority party of the Legislature controls the selection of committee chairs, so they are always members of the majority party.
      Now, and for most of Wyoming's history, the majority party is the Republican Party. The Republican legislative leadership chooses committee chairs from among Republican legislators, and each committee's membership is split along party lines according to the relative proportion of both parties' membership in the Legislature.
      For the 1997-98 biennium, most House committees had seven Republicans and two Democrats (the exceptions were Appropriations, with five Republicans and two Democrats; Journal, with one member from each party; and Rules & Procedures, with eight Republicans and three Democrats).
      All the Senate committees except Journal had three Republicans and two Democrats, with one from each party on the Journal Committee.
      Each party follows its own methods for choosing which members will be assigned to which committees.
      Legislators serving on the Judiciary and Appropriations Committees usually do not have any other committee assignments, because of the heavier workload these committees carry. Other legislators generally serve on two or three committees.
      During the "interim" between legislative sessions, the counterpart House and Senate committees meet together as a joint interim committee, e.g., the Joint Interim Judiciary Committee (Rules and Journal excepted).
      The Management Council of the Legislature assigns each joint interim committee topics to study and draft legislation for during the interim. The joint interim committees hold meetings open to the public. This process usually results in bills for the next session sponsored by the joint interim committee.
      The Legislature may also established temporary or permanent select committees on special topics. For example, during this biennium, select committees were chosen to deal with school finance issues.

Offices of the Legislature
      The Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate are the top leadership positions in the House and Senate, respectively. These individuals and the rest of the leadership all belong to the majority party (currently Republican).
      The Speaker and President have a major role in selecting committee chairs and the majority party membership of each committee.
      As noted earlier, they also refer bills to committees; they select the members of conference committees; and they recognize legislators to speak during debate. (All legislators take turns presiding over Committee of the Whole.)
      The Speaker Pro Tempore and Vice President act in the absence of the Speaker or President, and in the past usually moved on to become Speaker or President at the next session. The imposition of term limits may disrupt this historical pattern, however.
      The Majority Floor Leader controls the order of general file (the list of bills reported back favorably from committees that are awaiting floor debate). This position is more powerful than it sounds because Wyoming's short legislative sessions do not allow enough time for debate of every bill on general file.
      The bills at the top of the list are debated and the ones at the bottom are not. The Majority Floor Leader may rearrange the list at will, so one day you may find a bill you are interested in near the top, and the next day at the bottom.
      The Majority Floor Leader may thus single-handedly promote or destroy a bill just by placement.
      The Majority Whip primarily serves as a liaison between the leadership and the members, informing the leadership of members' views and carrying leadership directives back to the other members.
      The Whip is also responsible for making sure members are on the floor for key votes. In the past, the Whip usually progressed to the Floor Leader position.
      There are also a Minority Leader and a Minority Whip, which comprise the leadership of the minority (currently Democratic) party. The Minority Leader is the chief spokesperson for the minority party; the Whip holds essentially the same responsibilities as the Majority Whip, except for the minority party.

Term Limits
      The impact of term limits, which were passed by the voters in 1992, on the selection of leadership positions is as yet unknown but may have some effect.
      The ballot initiative enacted by the voters in 1992 held members of the House of Representatives to six years of service (three terms) and members of the Senate to 12 years (three terms).
      In 1995, the Legislature enacted the State Legislative Service Equalization law, which equalized term limits at 12 years in each house (six two-year House terms or three four-year Senate terms).
      An effort by the proponents of the original term limits initiative to repeal the Legislature s action by referendum qualified for the 1996 general election ballot - the first successful referendum in Wyoming s history.
      But getting on the ballot is not the only hurdle faced by initiatives and referenda. According to the Wyoming Constitution, they must pass by a majority of the total votes cast in the election, not just on the referendum itself.
      Consequently, although the referendum won by 104,544 to 90,138, it fell short of the 107,923 which represented a majority of the total votes cast statewide in the 1996 general election, and therefore lost.
      Past Speakers and Presidents have typically been in the Legislature for nearly 20 years, with the Speakers Pro Tempore and Vice Presidents not far behind, so even expanded term limits may bring decrease the significance of seniority in the selection of these officers.

Role of the Governor in the Legislative Process
      The hand of the executive branch also reaches into the legislative process. The Governor may suggest legislation and lobby on bills just like any other citizen.
      Once a bill passes both houses of the Legislature, it goes to the Governor, who either signs it, allows it to become law without his/her signature, or vetoes it. A veto may be overridden by a two-thirds vote of both houses.
      Under the Wyoming Constitution, the Governor has only three days (not counting Sundays) to sign, veto or allow a bill to become law without signature. After the Legislature adjourns, the Governor has 15 days to act on the remaining bills.