[Deschler's Precedents, Volume 7, Chapters 22 - 25]
[Chapter 24. Bills, Resolutions, and Memorials]
[A. Introductory; Various Types of Bills, Resolutions, and Other Mechanisms for Action]
[Â§ 2. Bills]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[Page 4781-4783]
 
                               CHAPTER 24
 
              Bills, Resolutions, Petitions, and Memorials
 
    A. INTRODUCTORY; VARIOUS TYPES OF BILLS, RESOLUTIONS, AND OTHER 
                         MECHANISMS FOR ACTION
 
Sec. 2. Bills

    The term ``bill,'' as used in the Constitution,(1) 
refers to the chief vehicle employed by the Congress in the enactment 
of laws under its legislative power.
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 1. U.S. Const. art. I, Sec. 7.
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    Bills are categorized under two headings: public and private. The 
former are general in their application, while the latter are specific 
and are limited in application to specified individuals or 
entities.(2)
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 2. See Sec. 3, infra.
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    Chapter 2 of title I of the United States Code contains the 
following provision regarding the enacting clause of a bill:

        Sec. 101. The enacting clause of all Acts of Congress shall be 
    in the following form: ``Be it enacted by the Senate and House of 
    Representatives of the United States of America in Congress 
    Assembled.''

                            Cross Reference
Introduction and reference of bills, see Ch. 16, supra.

[[Page 4782]]

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Interpretation of Bills

Sec. 2.1 It is not in order for a Member to have distributed on the 
    floor of the House copies of a bill marked with his own 
    interpretation of its provisions.

    On Aug. 16, 1935,(3) during consideration of a 
resolution (H. Res. 343) making in order the consideration of the 
Snyder-Guffey coal bill (H.R. 9100), Mr. Claude A. Fuller, of Arkansas, 
raised the following parliamentary inquiry:
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 3. 79 Cong. Rec. 13433, 74th Cong. 1st Sess.
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        Mr. Fuller: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a parliamentary inquiry. I 
    just sent a page for the bill under consideration, H.R. 9100, and 
    received the copy which I have in my hand. At the top of the bill, 
    pasted onto it is a pink slip, and on that pink slip in typewriting 
    are the words:

            Bituminous-coal bill as amended and reprinted--
        controversial phases largely eliminated. Two-thirds of tonnage 
        output operators favor bill, and more than 95 percent of labor.

        My inquiry is to know whether it is proper for anybody to paste 
    such a thing as that on a document of the House and whether it is 
    proper for it to be circulated in the House. This is the first time 
    in my experience that I have ever seen any advertisement on an 
    official document or bill pending in the House. I rise for the 
    purpose of ascertaining how it came there and whether or not it is 
    proper to be on this bill.
        The Speaker: (4) The Chair has no information on the 
    subject. Where did the gentleman get his copy of the bill?
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 4. Joseph W. Byrns (Tenn.).
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        Mr. Fuller: From a page. I send this copy to the desk so that 
    the Speaker may examine it.
        Mr. [J. Buell] Snyder [of Pennsylvania]: I can tell the 
    gentleman how that came there.
        The Speaker: The gentleman may state.
        Mr. Snyder: Mr. Speaker, I had so many of these bills sent to 
    my office, and with my secretarial help we wrote those words on 
    that pink slip and pasted the slip on the bill. That is how that 
    happens to be there. I sent copies of these bills with the slip on 
    them to those interested and sent some of them to the desk back 
    here, to be handed out upon request. It is altogether fitting and 
    proper that I should do so. . . .
        The Speaker: The Chair knows of no rule or authority for 
    inserting a statement like that to which the gentleman has called 
    attention on a bill, and the Chair instructs the pages of the House 
    not to distribute any more bills carrying this sort of inscription 
    to Members on the floor of the House.

Sec. 2.2 The Speaker does not rule on the effect of the provisions of a 
    bill or whether they might have been incorrectly drafted.

    On May 3, 1949,(5) during consideration in the House of 
the Na
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 5. 95 Cong. Rec. 5543, 5544, 81st Cong. 1st Sess.
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[[Page 4783]]

tional Labor Relations Act of 1949 (H.R. 2032), Mr. Adam Clayton 
Powell, Jr., of New York, raised a point of order:

        Mr. Powell: If this bill uses language which is no longer in 
    keeping with our laws, I raise the point of order that it is 
    incorrectly drawn. On page 53, line 13, this bill uses the 
    language, ``to review by the appropriate circuit court of 
    appeals.'' I make the point of order that there is no longer any 
    circuit court of appeals.
        The Speaker: (6) There might be 203 Members take the 
    same position that the gentleman from New York does, but that does 
    not alter the situation.
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 6. Sam Rayburn (Tex.).
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    The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.