14. A Guide to the Legislative Process

``THE BEST ARGUMENT IS THAT WHICH SEEMS MERELY AN EXPLANATION.'' Dale
Carnegie

Organization of the Legislative Body

	All state legislatures, as well as the US Congress, are divided
into two houses. (Nebraska, with one house, is the lone exception.)
The lower house (with a larger number of members, representing smaller
districts) is usually called the House of Representatives, or
sometimes the Assembly. The upper house, containing fewer members who
each represent larger districts, is usually called the Senate.

	At the city or county level, these is usually only one legislative
body, generally called the City Council, or Board of County
Commissioners.

	The practice of dividing a legislative body into two houses is
called ``bicameralism.'' In order to become law, a bill must pass both
houses of the legislature. Bicameralism provides a check on hasty,
poorly-written, or emotional legislation. It's no surprise, therefore,
that the anti-gun movement is generally much more successful at the
city council level than at the state legislature level.

How a bill Moves through the Legislature

	Upon introduction by a legislator, the bill is assigned a number.
The number reflects the house of origin, and the order of
introduction. For example, if the bill is the 52d bill introduced in
the Senate during the year, the bill will be ``S. 52'' or ``S.B. 52.''
(The ``B.'' stands for ``Bill.'')

	Once the bill has been introduced and assigned a number, it should
be available from the ``bill room'' of the legislature.

	Make sure to notify your National Rifle Association state liaison
and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms about
any gun-related bills that are introduced as soon as you hear about
them. The national pro-rights organizations depend on local activists
to be their eyes and ears about gun issues in their area. The national
groups have only a limited ability to monitor state legislatures, and
almost no ability to monitor city and county government. They need you
to keep them up to date.

	State legislatures and city councils (but usually not boards of
county commissioners) have committees that specialize in particular
subjects. A bill dealing with firearms issues will usually be sent to
the Judiciary Committee, although there are sometimes other
committees, such as Public Safety, State Affairs, Military Affairs, or
Local Affairs that might hear the bill.

	The committee will schedule a public hearing, where interested
persons will have the opportunity to testify. (See chapter 24 for
hints on testimony.) The bill may be revised in committee. If the
committee votes to approve the bill, the bill is sent to the full
house for consideration.

	In rare cases, the bill may be sent to another committee. For
example, a bill which increases the penalty for unlicensed gun
possession might first be sent to the Judiciary Committee, and then
the Appropriations Committee. The latter committee would consider the
fiscal impact of the extra prison space required by the increased
penalty.

	The assigning of bills to particular committees is the
responsibility of the leaders of the majority party in the house.
Usually the leaders have great discretion. If they favor a bill, they
will send it to a committee that they expect will approve the bill;
and if the leadership doesn't like the bill, they will send the bill
to a committee  they expect to bury it.

	If the bill survives the committee process, it is brought up on
the floor of the particular house for a vote. So if the bill was
sponsored by a Senator, it would have been sent to the Senate
Judiciary Committee. If approved by Senate Judiciary, the bill would
be voted on by the full Senate. If approved by the full Senate, the
bill would then be sent over the House of Representatives.

	Once in the House of Representatives, the bill would go through
the same process, being assigned to a committee, and if successful in
committee, being voted on the full House of Representatives.

	Thus, opponents of a bill have at least four separate
opportunities to kill it: once in Senate Committee, once on the Senate
floor, once in the House Committee, and once on the House floor. As a
result, it's much easier to kill legislation than to pass it. This is
exactly as was intended by the framers of the federal and state
constitutions, who wished to guard against the proliferation of laws.

	At the city or county level, there will be only one legislative
body, and there may be no committees. So to be enacted, a bill may
need only to receive a single vote of approval. This is one important
reason why anti-gun forces have been so much more successful at the
local level than the state level. This is also one reason why
preemption laws are so important, in order to make sure that laws on
crucial issues like gun rights are made only at the state level.
(State legislatures can, if they wish to, enact laws ``preempting''
local laws on a particular subject, in order that legislation on the
subject be uniform throughout the state; about 40 states have some
form of preemption for gun laws.)

	If the bill has passed through the legislature, it is sent to the
executive branch (the president, governor, or mayor), for approval.
The executive may sign the bill, or veto it. If the bill is vetoed, it
may become law anyway, if two-thirds of each legislative body vote to
override the veto. (A few legislative bodies, such as the Indiana
legislature, can override the veto with a simple majority.)

	The above discussion is a general outline that leaves out numerous
details and complications. Legislators who are expert in legislative
procedure can find numerous ways to revive bills that have been
killed, to avoid the committee process, and to accomplish all sorts of
other strange results.

How to Get Information About the Law

	Most state capitols have a ``bill room'' or other area where
interested citizens can pick up copies of proposed legislation. In
some states, the bill room staff can mail a bill to you. You make
their life much easier by knowing the bill's number. Staffers for your
Congressperson can help you get copies of federal bills, although the
process will usually take a while.

	Studying the exact language of a bill is very important. Careful
review of the bill may save you from making false statements about the
bill which your opponents (or your legislator's staffer) will quickly
refute. In addition, legislators are more apt to be persuaded by
people who can discuss the concrete details of a bill, rather than
people who just make generic statements about ``gun control.''

	Careful attention to language is also important because major
results can flow from tiny revisions in drafting; just removing the
word ``or'' and replacing it with ``and'' can turn a reasonable gun law
into a highly repressive one.

	If you need to refer to existing city (municipal) law, the city
hall will have a copy of existing city laws. Law libraries, and some
public libraries, will have copies of state and federal laws. Most
courthouses will have their own small law library.

	Compilations of statutes will usually have a key-word index at the
end. If you don't find something under ``gun,'' look under ``firearms,''
``arms'' and ``weapons.''

	Bound volumes of statutes are not updated every year to reflect
new laws which have been passed. The new laws can be found in the
``pocket part'' at the back of each volume. Make sure to look in the
pocket part before considering your study of a particular law
complete. If there has been a change made in the last couple years,
the new wording will likely be found in the pocket part, and not the
main volume.

How Your Congressperson Gets Information

	Legislators suffer from the unhappy dilemma of being starved for
information at the same time they are drowning in it.

	Congresspeople must live and work in Washington, DC, but have to
represent the views of folks in their district. Indeed, staying
employed as a Congressperson means keeping the folks at home happy.
How can you live in Washington, and at the same time know what the
folks in Kalamazoo are thinking?

	Many state legislators face a similar problem. They live and work
in state capitols such as Albany, but have to represent the views of
their district far away in Brooklyn. How to stay in touch?

	One obvious way is to read the hometown newspapers. But while
newspapers are important sources of information, the concerns of
journalists aren't necessarily the concerns of ordinary folks. Yet
after a while, legislators tend to confuse newspaper opinion with
public opinion. So when the editorial board of your hometown newspaper
goes on an anti-gun rampage, your representative starts to think the
folks back home are against guns.

	Legislators also depend on letters from their district, which is
one reason that mail operations are so important to most legislative
offices. And legislators also rely on the in-person contacts they have
when they go back to the district.

	Yet while legislators are desperate for information from the
district, their are overwhelmed with information about legislation.
Even in the smallest state legislatures, elected officials must make
decisions about a bewildering variety of topics every day. Lobbyists
try to buttonhole the legislators as they walk from one committee to
another; bills hundreds of pages long are introduced on Monday and
require a vote on Wednesday; and a torrent of printed matter descends
on the legislative office every day.

	Knowing the twin conditions of information glut and information
starvation faced by the legislators, gear your presentations to cure
both problems at once. The most persuasive argument you can present to
a legislator is how a bill will affect his own district, and how
people at home will react--that cures the legislator's problem of
information starvation.

	Deliver your arguments in easy to understand, carefully-prepared
formats, such as a strong one-page letter, or a well-practiced five
minute presentation during an office meeting with the legislator.
Instead of just handing him a transcript or a book or a stack of
articles, you will have already digested the material for him, and
presented it to him in a readily accessible way. That cures his second
problem of information overload. (You can still hand him the stack of
articles that supports the information in your one-page issue summary;
he'll be impressed with your thoroughness, and his aide might actually
look at some of the articles.)