How Laws Get Created

Since most states operate similarly to the federal government when making laws, we will focus on the federal process for now. There may be slight variations in how the process occurs in a particular state, but this overview describes the basic process. To create a law, a member of Congress first proposes it as a bill. The bill is studied by a congressional committee, debated, and revised. Most bills "die" in committee and are never presented to the full Congress for a vote. If the House version of the bill and Senate version are different, a joint committee negotiates changes until the two versions are identical. Finally, Congress votes on the bill. If the bill passes, it's sent to the president. If the president signs the bill, it becomes law. Then, it's up to the courts to interpret how the law should be enforced. Sometimes the law is easy to interpret. For example, when you are playing Monopoly and land on the "Go to Jail" square, the instructions say to "go directly to jail, do not pass GO and do not collect $200." There isn't much room for interpretation of that rule!

Watch the following video to understand the basics of how a bill becomes a law.

 

The rules of Monopoly also say to roll both dice and move the appropriate number of spaces. But what if one of the dice falls on the floor while you are rolling? Are you supposed to reroll that die or use whatever number appears on the floor? The rules don't provide an answer for that situation, so the players have to decide (interpret) what the rule should be. Now, suppose when you roll the dice, one die lands on a surface that isn't flat. Do you reroll or do you use whatever number appears to be facing up? This is another decision you must make that isn't specified in the rules. In our legal system, the judicial branch (the courts) has to make those decisions by interpreting the intent of the law. When a court interprets a statute or administrative rule, it's called statutory construction.

How does a court interpret the meaning of a particular law? First, the court will look at the actual text of the law to see if the law itself provides an answer. In our example above, the Monopoly rules are very specific about what happens when you land on "Go to Jail." If the text of the law doesn't provide an answer (such as what to do when the dice land on the floor), the court will read the reports that Congress wrote when it passed the law. Those reports provide insight into why Congress passed the law and how Congress thinks the law should be interpreted. These reports often help a court in interpreting a specific section of a law. In addition, a court will look at how that specific section of the law has been interpreted by other courts in previous cases. Every time a court interprets a law, it creates a precedent that other courts can follow in future cases. We will discuss precedents in more detail later in this lesson.