HOW A BILL BECOMES A LAW| 283the previous year’s levels in order to keep the government open. Congress passed
four continuing resolutions for the 2012 fi scal year. That may sound like a lot, but
the record is 21 for the 2001 fi scal year.^24
PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL OR VETO
The bill is then sent to the president. If he approves and signs the measure within 10
days (not counting Sundays), it becomes law. If the president objects to the bill, he may
veto it within 10 days by sending it back to the chamber where it originated, along with
a statement of objections. Unless both the House and the Senate vote to override the
veto by a two-thirds majority, the bill dies. If the president does not act within 10 days
and Congress is in session, the bill becomes law without the president’s approval. If
Congress is not in session, the measure dies through a pocket veto.
Deviations from the Conventional Process
There are many ways in which legislation may not follow the typical path. First,
in some congresses up to 20 percent of major bills bypass the committee system.
This may be done by a discharge petition, in which a majority of the members force
a bill out of its assigned committee, or by a special rule in the House. In some cases
a bill may go to the relevant committee, but then party leadership may impose its
version of the bill later in the process. Consider the USA PATRIOT Act, which
Congress passed in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to give the government
stronger surveillance powers. It was unanimously reported by the Judiciary Com-
mittee after fi ve days of hard bipartisan work; but a few days later, according to
committee member Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), “Then the bill just disappeared.
And we had a new several hundred page bill revealed from the Rules Committee”
that had to be voted on the next day. Most members of Congress did not have a
chance to read it.^25 The Aff ordable Care Act passed in 2010 also deviated from the
standard path (see “How It Works”).
Second, about one-third of major bills are adjusted post-committee and before
the legislation reaches the fl oor by supporters of the bill to increase the chances of
passage. Sometimes the bill goes back to the committee after these changes, and
sometimes it does not. Thus although most of the legislative work is accomplished
in committees, a signifi cant amount of legislation bypasses committee review.
Third, summit meetings between the president and congressional leaders may
bypass or jump-start the normal legislative process. For example, rather than
going through the Budget Committees to set budgetary targets, the president may
meet with top leaders from both parties and hammer out a compromise that is pre-
sented to Congress as a done deal.
Fou r t h, omnibus legislation—massive bills that run hundreds of pages
long and cover many diff erent subjects and programs—often requires creative
approaches by the leadership to guide the bill through the legislative maze. Lead-
ership task forces may be used in the place of committees, and alternatives to the
conference committee may be devised to resolve diff erences between the two
chambers. In addition, the massive legislation often carries riders—extraneous
legislation attached to the “must pass” bill to secure approval for pet projects that
would otherwise fail. This form of pork-barrel legislation is another mechanism
used in the quest for re-election.
omnibus legislation Large bills
that often cover several topics and
may contain extraneous, or pork-
barrel, projects.pocket veto The automatic death
of a bill passed by the House and
Senate when the president fails to
sign the bill in the last ten days of a
legislative session.