Excerpt from New York State Communicator
How a bill becomes a law in NYS
The legislature is in full swing in May.
Both houses are reviewing legislation and passing bills. It is important to understand how a bill becomes a law in New York. This is a complicated process and involves many steps.
First, a bill must be introduced in identical form by a sponsor in both the Assembly and the Senate. If even one word is different between the two versions, the bill cannot become law in New York. Unlike Congress, the Legislature in New York has no conference committees to resolve differences between bills.
In order for a bill to pass in either house, it must pass through the appropriate committees. There is always the initial topic committee to which a bill is assigned. For example, if the bill deals with education, it will be assigned to the Education Committee. Bills in the Senate tend to have to go through fewer committees than bills in the Assembly. Depending upon their subject matter, some pieces of legislation must go through particular committees before coming to a floor vote, no matter what committee they were first assigned. For example, if a bill has a fiscal impact, it must go through the Ways and Means Committee in the Assembly or the Finance Committee in the Senate. Navigating a bill through the committee process takes time and attention.
If an organization or person is supporting a bill, it is important to know the bill number, what bill the committee is in, who the sponsors are and what other committees a bill will have to go through before either the Senate or Assembly can vote on it. Without this information, asking your local Senator or Assembly member for help can be difficult because they will not know what bill you are referring to or how they can help.
Thousands of bills are introduced in both houses. In the Assembly in 2015, there were over 8,300 bills introduced and in the Senate, there will over 6,000 bills introduced. All of these bills are active in 2016 and even more bills have been introduced this year. In the Assembly we are currently over XX,000 bills, and in the Senate, we are at over X,000 bills. While thousands of bills are introduced in any given year, a very small percentage of those bills pass both houses. For example, in 2015, only 718 passed both houses.
Amy Kellogg is a New York State Women, Inc. member at large, a Past State President and a partner at Harter Secrest & Emery in the Albany, NY office where she practices Government Affairs. For more detailed information, she can be reached at ajkellogg@aol.com.