Only the House of Representatives May Write What Bills
Common Interpretation
Commodity I, Section 7
Article I, Department 7 of the Constitution creates certain rules to govern how Congress makes law. Its first Clause—known as the Origination Clause—requires all bills for raising revenue to originate in the House of Representatives. The 2nd—the Presentment Clause—requires all laws to exist presented to the President for his signature or veto. And the tertiary Clause—the Presentment of Resolutions Clause—prevents Congress from sidestepping the Presentment Clause. Taken together, these rules channel lawmaking through a process that promotes thorough deliberation over the wisdom of whatsoever new legislation.
The Origination Clause derived from an English parliamentary do requiring all coin bills to have their first reading in the House of Commons. The Framers borrowed this practice, hoping that information technology would confer the "power of the purse" on the legislative body well-nigh responsive to the people—the House of Representatives. As such, only the House may introduce bills "for raising acquirement," although the Senate is explicitly empowered to amend House-originated bills. Any other type of bill may originate in either the Senate or the House.
The Origination Clause was part of the Great Compromise. A concession to the larger states, which were dissatisfied with the smaller states' disproportionate power in the Senate, it limits the ability to introduce taxation and tariff bills exclusively to the Firm of Representatives, where the larger states enjoyed greater representation. But while the Clause was hotly contested during the Constitutional Convention and the ratification debates, the Senate's power to meliorate revenue-raising bills has deprived the Clause of much applied significance.
The Presentment Clause is no such paper tiger. The Clause provides that a beak tin become a police but if, after passage past both Houses of Congress, it is presented to the President. The President and then has ten days either to sign the nib into law or reject the nib and render it to Congress with an explanation of his or her objections.
If the President rejects the bill, he or she must render it to the House in which it originated. This process is known every bit a "veto," though the word does not actually appear in the text of the Constitution. Congress may so modify the neb, responding to the President'due south stated objections, to increment the likelihood of presidential approval. Alternatively, Congress may override the President'due south veto if both Houses tin laissez passer the bill by at to the lowest degree a two-thirds vote. The neb then becomes law without further "presentment" to the President.
Matters are more than complicated if the President does zero past the end of the 10-twenty-four hours window. If Congress is in session, the bill becomes a police—a phenomenon known as "default enactment." If Congress is out of session, however, the President has no identify to return a neb that he or she wishes to veto. In those circumstances, the President may effectively veto the pecker by taking no activity. This procedure, first used by James Madison during an intersession recess in 1812, is known every bit a "pocket veto." Congress may not override a pocket veto.
What exactly constitutes an adjournment for the purposes of a pocket veto has been a source of conflict. Does any adjournment count, for example, or just those adjournments that end the legislative session? The Supreme Courtroom provided some insight in the Pocket Veto Case (1929), holding that "the determinative question" is whether Congress has adjourned in a manner "that 'prevents' the President from returning the bill to the House in which it originated within the time immune." Because both Houses had adjourned in the Pocket Veto Instance, even though the legislation session was non over, a pocket veto was permissible.
The Court refined that interpretation in Wright five. United States (1938), ruling that a three-day adjournment of just 1 House of Congress does not permit a pocket veto. For cursory adjournments of a single Business firm, the Court ruled, the originating Firm may designate an agent, such as a Secretary or Clerk, to receive a vetoed bill. Modern exercise is more fluid than Wright may suggest, however. Several contempo Presidents have purported to pocket veto bills fifty-fifty when the originating House of Congress has designated an agent to receive a veto message.
The 3rd and concluding Clause, known as the Presentment of Resolutions Clause, concerns the presentment of orders, resolutions, and any issues other than bills. The Presentment of Resolutions Clause was appended at the behest of James Madison, who foresaw the possibility that Congress might circumvent the presentment process by fashioning a nib as a "resolution" or "guild." To avoid that circumvention, the Clause says that any issue requiring the concurrence of the Business firm and the Senate—whatever that issue happens to be called—must exist presented to the President. A congressional declaration of war, for example, comes in the form of a joint resolution. Although information technology is non denominated a "bill," it must exist submitted for presidential approval.
Non all issues crave presentment, however. The Clause explicitly exempts questions of banishment and, nether Article Five, congressionally proposed amendments to the Constitution are sent to state legislatures for approving, not to the President. More than generally, resolutions that are non meant to become law are not discipline to presentment. Congress may, for example, adopt concurrent resolutions setting monetary goals without seeking presidential blessing. The same holds for resolutions that apply only to the operation of a particular House, such as imposing censure on a House fellow member or expressing "the mood" of the Firm. By the aforementioned token, legislative subpoenas are not presented to the president for his approval.
The Supreme Court reinforced the Presentment of Resolutions Clause (and vindicated Madison'south prediction) nigh famously in I.N.S. 5. Chadha (1983), ruling that information technology was unconstitutional for Congress to use a resolution to overturn an executive action. The Court reasoned that such a "legislative veto" circumvents the presentment procedure and infringes on the President's power to execute the laws.
Matters of Debate
Judicial Enforcement of Article I, Section 7
Some of the virtually urgent debates in constitutional law arise when courts are asked to enforce those parts of the Constitution—including Commodity I, Section vii—that structure how Congress makes law.
Although the signal is often overlooked, about of the constitutional rules governing code need no judicial enforcement. The Firm of Representatives, for example, does not endeavour to claim the ability to brand a law without Senate involvement. Nor do the Business firm and Senate believe that their bills have the forcefulness of law even if the President has vetoed them. The rules of bicameralism and presentment are so entrenched in our constitutional arrangement that information technology would be unthinkable to disregard them.
From time to time, however, complex questions do arise about whether Congress and the President accept been faithful to the lawmaking process that Commodity I, Section 7 prescribes. When that happens, the courts may be enlisted to uphold the constitutional design. Courts must then confront a hard question: how stringently should they apply the open-ended terms of the Constitution?
Have, for example, recent litigation over the Affordable Intendance Act (ACA), which reformed the nation'south health-care system. Technically, the ACA adhered to the Origination Clause, which says that "[a]ll Bills for raising Acquirement shall originate in the House of Representatives." The bill that became the ACA was first introduced and passed in the Firm equally the "Service Members Dwelling Ownership Taxation Human action of 2009."
That Firm-originated bill, however, had nothing any to do with health care. The bill became the ACA only when the Senate struck the language of the original bill and replaced it with the text of the wellness-care reform law. Nothing of the original bill remained.
Another Perspective
This essay is part of a discussion about Commodity I, Section 7 with Thomas A. Smith, Professor of Law, Academy of San Diego School of Constabulary. Read the full discussion hither.
Subsequently the ACA'south adoption, lawsuits were filed arguing that this "vanquish bill" procedure violated the Origination Clause. The challengers had a point. The Origination Clause is supposed to give the House of Representatives the outset say in whether and when to do the power to tax. Although the Senate can "suggest and concur with Amendments as on other bills," assuasive the Senate to completely supercede a Business firm-originated bill would effectively strip the Business firm of its gatekeeping function. The challengers therefore asked the courts to invalidate the ACA in its entirety.
Wisely, still, the courts have unanimously turned aside the ramble challenge. The beat out bill procedure was not born with the ACA; it is, in fact, a procedure that the Senate has used for 200 years. And the courts take never felt it necessary to examine whether Senate amendments are "germane" to a House-originated pecker. In the 1911 case of Flintstone v. Stone Tracy Company, for example, the Supreme Courtroom affirmed the constitutionality of a Senate amendment that substituted a corporate tax for a House-originated inheritance tax.
In result, the courts have deferred to Congress'due south longstanding practice, even though the practice left the Origination Clause with petty piece of work to practice. Yet the Commonwealth has non fallen. Over time, the word betwixt the House and the Senate has generated a stable equilibrium that has met with general approval. The courts are rightly reluctant to upset that hard-won equilibrium.
Indeed, the courts' refusal to breathe new life into the Origination Clause may reflect a tacit recognition that the Clause has outlived its original purpose. Prior to the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment, land legislatures selected the Senators that would stand for the states in Congress. Today, both Houses tin can credibly claim to speak directly for the people, reducing the demand for the House to retain any special control over bills to raise revenue.
A movement is afoot, however, to use ramble litigation equally a sword to disengage what Congress has created. Couched in the rhetoric of restoring the Constitution'south "original meaning," the movement's goal is to clip Congress'southward wings and disengage its handiwork. The lawsuits against the ACA exemplify that move.
Just the Constitution'due south meaning was not fixed in stone at the moment of its ratification. The Constitution has instead accrued significant from history, practice, and an evolving sense of its broader purposes. The Origination Clause may do little work in the modern era, but that's OK. Times change; so besides does the style we read the Constitution.
To be certain, on rare occasions, judicial intervention to enforce Article I, Department 7 may well be necessary. In INS v. Chadha (1983), for example, the Supreme Court was rightly troubled at how a ane-house veto over executive-branch action might enable Congress to retain control over the execution of the laws.
But that kind of intervention should be the exception, not the norm. Otherwise, judicial superintendence of the machinery of lawmaking risks disappointment the volition of the people without adequate justification. When information technology comes to the Origination Clause, the courts have so far resisted the blandishments of those who seek to invalidate Congress's handiwork in the proper name of restoring the Constitution'southward original meaning. They should continue to practise so.
Matters of Debate
The Futurity of Commodity I, Section 7
One of the nearly interesting recent developments in our understanding of Article I, Section seven concerns its third Clause, known equally the Presentment of Resolutions Clause, or the Social club, Resolution, and Vote (ORV) Clause. Subject to a major revelation in the early on xx-start century, its story illustrates originalist legal scholarship in action. (Originalism is an approach to the Constitution that seeks to translate it according to its original public pregnant.) Though the ORV Clause was widely understood for more than 200 years to be a failsafe against Congress disguising a bill every bit a "resolution" and thus circumventing the Presidential presentment requirement, Seth Barrett Tillman'due south piece of work revealed that the Framers' intent was quite probable otherwise.
The popular interpretation of the ORV Clause comes from James Madison's account of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Madison proposed that Clause 2, the Presentment Clause, be amended to include the phrase "or resolve" after "bill," achieving the same issue as that popularly attributed to the ORV Clause. Though Madison's proposal was rejected, Virginia consul Edmund Randolph successfully proposed the ORV Clause the following mean solar day. According to Madison, the ORV Clause was simply a "new grade" of his failed amendment. As practically the only surviving commentary, Madison'southward oddly simplistic account of the ORV Clause was accepted uncritically past the Supreme Court and legal scholars.
What Tillman uncovered was that Madison'southward interpretation of the ORV Clause is actually inconsistent with the constitutional text. Tillman's 2005 enquiry suggests that the ORV Clause is non only an anti-circumvention device, simply also subjects to presentment certain legislative actions not addressed in the Presentment Clause. These actions include a range of single-House actions authorized by prior, bicameral legislation. That Congress may legislatively authorize a single Firm to deed alone contradicts more than two centuries of legal scholarship and Supreme Court decisions—most notably, INS v. Chadha (1983). In Chadha, the Court struck downwardly the "legislative veto" past the Firm of Representatives for failing to comply with the principle of bicameralism.
Tillman's findings besides neatly resolved an otherwise puzzling Supreme Court decision from 1798. In Hollingsworth v. Virginia, the Courtroom ruled in a cursory opinion that Congress need not have presented the Eleventh Subpoena to President Washington for his approval. Subsequent decisions take interpreted the belongings to mean merely that constitutional subpoena resolutions are exempt from the presentment requirement. Under Tillman's interpretation, all the same, the Hollingsworth mystery is solved: the ORV Clause requires that an lodge, resolution, or vote must exist presented to the President but if it is authorized by a prior statute ("to which the Concurrence of the Senate and Business firm or Representatives may be necessary . . . "). Because Congress does non rely on any statutory potency when it passes constitutional amendments, the ORV Clause does non apply, and Congress thus need not present ramble subpoena resolutions to the President.
Though his interpretation of the ORV Clause revealed a long-neglected domain of legislation in which Congress may delegate authority to single Houses or even unmarried congressional committees, Tillman failed to ascertain the limits of these delegations. In a published response, Professor Gary Lawson attempted to do just that. Though Lawson generally agreed with Tillman's interpretation of the ORV Clause, he found that there likely exists only one category of legislative action to which the ORV Clause could apply: the issuance of legislative subpoenas.
Another Perspective
This essay is office of a word near Article I, Section 7 with Nicholas Bagley, Professor of Police, The University of Michigan Police School. Read the full discussion hither.
According to Lawson's reading of the Constitution, Congress may not delegate legislative authority simply to anyone—not to the President, nor the federal courts, nor even itself. The ORV Clause thus cannot require presentment for any actions made by a single House or committee pursuant to delegated legislative authority, because such delegation is constitutionally impermissible. Further, equally Lawson interprets the Presentment Clause, the just type of legislation that tin go a law is a neb. The ORV Clause, even so, alludes to an social club, resolution, or vote that "shall take Result" upon blessing of the President or passage by 2-thirds of the Senate and the House. If merely a beak may go a constabulary, Lawson asks, and so how else may an gild, resolution, or vote "take Outcome"? His answer is that Congress, under the dominance of the Necessary and Proper Clause, may enact legislation authorizing each Firm to result subpoenas.
While the Constitution grants neither House of Congress the ability to effect subpoenas, a law authorizing the issuance of subpoenas by private Houses could be valid under the Necessary and Proper Clause, which allows Congress "to make all laws which shall exist necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" powers elsewhere granted to the respective Houses. As Lawson allows, the power to issue subpoenas may be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the impeachment powers the Constitution grants to each of the Houses. Though it could not become a police, a legislative subpoena would "have Issue" by compelling testimony in an impeachment hearing. In practice, then, the ORV Clause would require that earlier whatever unmarried Business firm issues a subpoena on the potency of a prior statutory authority, the subpoena be presented to the President for his approval or veto, just equally was the prior legislation that authorized the single-Business firm subpoena.
The Tillman-Lawson analysis may strike one as excessively technical, just in this as in many other parts of our Constitution, the devil is in the details. The Supreme Court might revisit Chadha, and when information technology does, these scholars' arguments may suddenly have on the relevance of living, and contested, police.
Further Reading:
Seth Barrett Tillman, A Textualist Defense of Commodity I, Department 7, Clause three: Why Hollingsworth v. Virginia Was Rightly Decided, and Why INS 5. Chadha Was Wrongly Reasoned, 83 Texas 50. Rev. 1265 (2005).
Gary Lawson, Called-for Down the Firm (and Senate): A Presentment Requirement for Legislative Subpoenas Nether the Orders, Resolutions, and Votes Clause, 83 Tex. Fifty. Rev. 1373 (2005).
Source: https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-i/clauses/766
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