Legislation 101

1
Legislation 101

• Or
• How to Write Bills that Dont Suck as Much as
  Having a 730 am Final on Friday of Finals Week

2
Basic Bill Writing

• Rules Committee approves bills and sets agenda by
  Tuesday
• Senate sees bills on Wednesday, no debate
• Senate debates and votes on bills the next
  Wednesday

3
Advanced Bill Writing

• Rules Committee typically meets at 5pm Mondays
• They need your legislation in ELECTRONIC form by
  then
• They will make grammatical changes
• They will place the legislation on the agenda or
  notify you otherwise

4
Advanced, Part 2

• Every legislation needs 4 things
• Title
• Whereas clause
• Resolved/Ordered/Enacted Clause
• Two authors (author and 2nd)

• Kinds of Legislation
• Orders
• Bills
• Finance
• Bylaws, etc.
• Resolutions

5
General Tips

• Avoid using the Thesaurus
• Be concise
• Look through old legislation for similar bills
  often times you can just copy and paste
• Otherwise, there are Templates on the GSB server
• Be sure to get it to Rules by 5
• Ask for help if you need it (even if you dont,
  its a good way to find a 2nd)