On March 23, the Senate passed a bill that should increase funding for the government for $1.3 trillion and help it to continue performing its primary functions (Fox and Mattingly). The bill consisted of more than 2,000 pages upon its final approval. This spending package was approved as a result of the bipartisan agreement. Without signing this bill, the government of the US would be temporarily shut down until further notice. The date of signing was set to be earlier than the possible time of the shutdown in order to keep the governmental structures operating without intermissions. The approved spending package will go towards military and domestic expenses (Fox et al.). The bill also includes some detailed policy instructions that are concerned with gun background checks and states’ responsibility to improve their records of information about gun safety.
The initial version of the bill was supposed to have a number of additional instructions as well. For example, the Democrats wanted to add more protective guarantees for persons participating in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) (Fox et al.). However, the negotiation did not result in an agreement between the two parties and the guarantees were excluded from the last modification of the bill. According to Fox and Mattingly, President Donald Trump did not approve of the contents of this bill but agreed to sign it. The Senate passed this bill after the House of Representatives that has also passed the legislation the previous day. After both of the voting processes were over, the President signed this bill. The procedure for signing the bill has taken a short period of time and passed from one governmental entity to another in the matter of hours.
The right to pass bills and perform other legislative actions is given to the Congress by the Constitution of the United States. According to Section 1 of Article I, the Congress shall consist of two parts and include the House of Representatives and the Senate (“Article I. Legislative Branch”). The Congress has the power to pass the bill described above as well as any other bill according to Section 7 of Article I of Constitution. This part states that every bill which passed through both the House of Representatives and the Senate can be presented to the President for signing (“Article I. Legislative Branch”). Therefore, the actions of both parts of the Congress were legal.
Moreover, the voting process in Congress’ actions also adhered to the Constitution which gives its members the right to pass or not to pass bills with voting “by yeas and nays” (“Article I. Legislative Branch.”). The votes for this bill were 256-167 in the House of Representatives and 65-32 in the Senate. This result allowed the Houses to pass the bill without any additional issues, although the vote was not unanimous (Fox and Mattingly).
The Constitution states that the President’s decision to return the bill to the House of Representatives for a revision would have required the Houses to vote with a bigger margin, as both parts of the Congress would have to collect more than three-thirds of positive votes. However, in this case, the bill passed without any problems and became law. The powers of the Congress are also described in Section 8 of Article I of the Constitution. In this part, the Congress is granted full power over creating and passing laws of any kind (“Article I. Legislative Branch”). Therefore, the actions taken by the Congress in this situation were entirely legal as the members of both Houses were acting according to the Constitution.
Works Cited
“Article I. Legislative Branch.” The United States Constitution. Web.
Fox, Lauren, and Phil Mattingly. “Congress Passes $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill, Funds Government through September.” CNN, 2018. Web.
Fox, Lauren, et al. “Congress Unveils $1.3 Trillion Spending Package, Includes Background Check Bill.” CNN, 2018. Web.