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simple majority vote, but nominations are debatable. Therefore, supporters of a nominee may
have to use the cloture process to reach a vote on the nominee. For the U.S. Supreme Court and
for other nominees, the cloture vote is subject to a simple majority threshold. Using cloture to
reach a vote on a pending nomination may take significant floor time.
Resolving Differences
A bill must be agreed upon by both chambers in the same form and text before it can be
presented to the President. Once a chamber passes a bill, it is engrossed (prepared in official
form) and then sent to the other chamber. In the majority of cases, the second chamber simply
agrees to the exact text passed by the first chamber, in which case Congress has then completed
its action on the bill. Once both chambers have agreed to the bill, the bill is enrolled and prepared
in its final official form before it is presented to the President.
In some cases, the second chamber decides to amend the first chamber’s bill. They then propose
an alternative version of the bill, which may differ from the first bill in minor or substantial
ways. Once the second chamber agrees to the proposed alternative, it sends the proposal back to
the first chamber for consideration and a vote. The receiving chamber may also respond with a
counterproposal, and so on. This back-and-forth trading of proposals by the House and Senate is
called amendment exchange, or ping-pong. For the bill to become law, one chamber must
eventually agree to the other chamber’s proposal.
Sometimes, the resolution of differences between the House and Senate proposals may instead be
accomplished through a conference committee: a temporary committee formed in relation to a
specific bill to negotiate a proposal that can be agreed to by both chambers. Each conference
committee is made up of members of the House and the Senate, called conferees, who are part of
the committees with jurisdiction over the bill. Through a combination of informal negotiations
and formal meetings, the conferees hammer out a compromise. If a proposal can garner the
support of a majority of the House conferees and the Senate conferees, then the negotiated
proposal is embodied in a conference report. Then, this conference report can be considered in
one chamber, and if agreed to, it is considered in the other chamber. Regardless of which
chamber goes first, the conference report is considered under sets of procedures used for other
business. Reaching a vote on a conference report in the Senate may require a cloture process.
Both chambers agree to the conference report without changes.
Presidential Actions
Once both chambers have passed the bill, it is enrolled and prepared in its official form and then
presented to the President. Beginning at midnight on the closing of the day of presentment, the
President has ten days, excluding Sundays, to sign or veto the bill. If the bill is signed in that
period, it becomes law. If the president declines to either sign or veto the bill, then it becomes
law without his signature, with exception when Congress has adjourned for over 10 days.
If the President vetoes the bill, it is returned to the chamber in which it originated. Both
chambers can override the president’s veto with the support of two-thirds of those voting. If the
override vote of the first chamber is successful, then the second chamber decides whether to