Lawmaking 101: Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act of 2015

Overview

This week you've gotten an idea about how a bill becomes a law. Sometimes it's a quick process, while other times bills may not make it very far or may take a long time to pass. (There are currently almost 8000 bills or resolutions now before Congress!)

This assignment is meant to get you to see a little bit more about the process of passing a law. 

Directions

1. Go to the Govtrack.us website page for bills that have been made into law (Links to an external site.) for the current Congress. (Note: This is not a government website, you can also go to Congress.gov (Links to an external site.)). Click on a title of a law that interests you. 
2. Create a short summary of the goal of this law in your own words. 
3. Use the following following questions to summarize how your legislation got passed:
   1. Who introduced the legislation? What party do they belong to?
   2. When did it go to Committee? What Committees did it go to? How many Democrats or Republicans are on each Committee? (Check out the Committees link).
   3. When did it pass the House? If the information is available, how many Democrats and Republicans voted for or against this legislation? How many didn't vote (abstained)? (Check out the House Votes on Passage link on the bill overview page.)
   4. When did it pass the Senate? If the information is available, how many Democrats and Republicans voted for or against this legislation? How many didn't vote (abstained)?
   5. When did the President sign it?