FYI re: USPS Legislation

This is in regard to the August 22, 2020, Saturday vote by the House of Representatives on bill funding the USPS for absentee ballot issues.

As it happens, not all Representatives were present and asked people to vote for them by proxy.

Currently, the US Post Office has a surplus of $11 billion, as reported yesterday on the news. The House of Reps voted yesterday to pass a $25 billion funding bill to “assist” with handling of absentee ballots. That is Bill # HR 8015.

If the USPS does have the reported surplus, what is the real problem here?

Apparently, Representative Pelosi has forgotten the rules that govern passing legislation in the US  Congress, so a little refresher is advisable. Her rush to get this passed appears to be a way to “defy Trump”, a ridiculous thing to do when the steps to pass Congressional legislation are reviewed.  https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/the-legislative-branch/#:~:text=A%20bill%20must%20pass%20both,of%20members%20from%20both%20chambers.

For anyone who didn’t have to study the US Constitution in high school in order to graduate, I pity you, but here you go.

The rules of legislation are simple:  If a bill is passed in the House of Representatives, it must go to the Senate for the Senate to vote on it.

If it does not pass the Senate’s vote, it dies. Period.

Yes, that is the law.

If the Senate passes a law of its own that is similar to the House bill, but with some differences, these two bills go to Conference Committee to bring them into alignment, before they go to the White House.

Neither the House bill nor the Senate bill automatically goes to the President for signature.

Both of them are required to go through these steps.

Here is the precise wording:

A bill must pass both houses of Congress before it goes to the President for consideration. Though the Constitution requires that the two bills have the exact same wording, this rarely happens in practice. To bring the bills into alignment, a Conference Committee is convened, consisting of members from both chambers. –  White House.gov article

Once the bills are in alignment, the final text is then enrolled by the Clerk of the House or the Secretary of the Senate, depending on where the legislation originated. The final bill is then sent to the President for signature.

The secondary part of this is as follows:

When receiving a bill from Congress, the President has several options. If the President agrees substantially with the bill, he or she may sign it into law, and the bill is then printed in the Statutes at Large. If the President believes the law to be bad policy, he may veto it and send it back to Congress. Congress may override the veto with a two-thirds vote of each chamber, at which point the bill becomes law and is printed. – White House . gov article

And as indicated by the term “Congress”, the vote involves both the House and the Senate, period.

I hope that it’s now clear that in her haste to establish herself as Da Boss of It All, Representative Pelosi has run roughshod over voters with this actioni, and has likewise blatantly ignored the real issues at hand.  These include unemployment compensation at the federal level. At the state levels, it is a mixed bag that is not working well.

I’m not hurting for anything right now, but I do know people who are in that pickle. My next door neighbor is one of them.

Putting this crass, ego-driven nonsense ahead of the welfare of the people of this country – people who can and will vote – is as despicable as you can get, but this is where the Democrats seem to be heading.

 

 

 

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work"