Policy Formulation: Development of Legislation

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Chapter 6

• Policy Formulation Development of Legislation

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Policy Development

• Policies result through sequential activities of
  agenda setting
• Final result or outcome of policy formulation
  phase is a new public policy
• Part 1 Agenda setting leads to
• Part 2 Legis. Dev.

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Development Steps

• 1. Proposals hypothesized or unproven solutions
  
• Proposals not enacted die and must be
  reintroduced.
• Concrete legislative proposals bills or
  resolutions.
• Only members of Congress introduce legislation.

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Origins of Ideas for Public Policy

• Members of Congress
• The Constitution
• Individual citizens
• Health related organizations
• Interest groups
• Executive communication

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Development Steps

• 2. Drafting legislative proposals.
• Often trained legislative counsels draft the
  bills b/o issue complexities and the intricacies
  of the task.
• Bills have multiple sponsors.

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Development Steps

• 3. Introduction for formal consideration.
• The committee chair introduces the bill.
• Bills are assigned sequential numbers.
• Legislative committees and subcommittees
• 20 standing committees in house
• 17 standing committees in senate

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Committee Members

• Divided between the two major political parties
• Proportions of members determined by majority
  party
• Majority party controls the appt. of committee
  and subcommittee chairpersons
• Chairpersons determine order of proposals

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Health Policy Committees

• No committee devoted exclusively to health
• Health related issues divided among several
  committees
• Most referred to House Committee on Commerce or
  Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and
  Pensions
• Health bills involving taxes are referred to the
  House Ways Means or Senate Finance Com

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Committee Subcommittee Operations

• Hold public hearings
• Line by line examination or markup
• Bill is voted upon
• If approved, a committee report is written in
  the name of the committee member.

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4. Congressional Floor Action

• House or Senate receives bill with report
• Legislative calendar for discussion
• Referral to a comm. or subcomm.
• Bill goes to chamber floor for a vote

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If No Agreement

• A conference committee is formed to resolve the
  conflict.
• If agreement , a conference report is written
  which is voted on by the whole Congress.
• If no agreement is met or if chamber does not
  accept conference report, the bill dies.
• If both chambers accept, the bill is sent to the
  President for action.

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5. Presidential Action

• The bill can be
• Signed
• Vetoed
• Delayed
• Pocketed

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Legislative Dev. For Fed. Budget

• Budgets identify decisions on spending sources
• These decisions impact policy in others areas

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Steps in Budget Process

• President submits draft to Congress
• Congressional committees draft and approve
  resolutions
• Congress votes on adopts resolutions
• Committees resolve differences
• Reconciliation
• Vote on reconciliation appropriation bills

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Formulation to Implementation

• The point when the proposed legislation becomes a
  law is the transition point from policy
  formulation to policy implementation.

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NO CLASS NEXT WEEK

• Case Analysis due on April 3rd.
• Have an enjoyable SPRING BREAK!!!