Think about how often we hear “We are a nation of laws,” or “He’s got the law on his side.” 

Consider how highly we esteem the men and women in blue that we count on to enforce our laws. And don’t forget the endless conversations on cable news channels and talk radio that focus on whether a given law is good or bad. Obviously, we as a people are vitally interested in laws.

Considering the central role of law in our self-governing society, it’s ironic that there seems to be so much confusion about how and why our laws are actually made.

Can the governor raise our taxes, for example? A lot of people seem to think so, but the answer is no. A governor can’t make any law, only sign or veto laws passed by the Legislature.

So, who should we thank — or get mad at — for a particular law?

The answer is: a lot of people. In our democracy, lawmaking is a group effort with citizen-lawmakers, organizations representing segments of society (business owners, retirees, educators, hunters, farmers and so on) and interest groups of one sort or another, which are often derisively referred to as “special-interest groups” by persons opposed to their goals, each playing a role. 

It’s curious that this term has become so loaded. The fact is, if you belong to the PTA at your child’s elementary school, you belong to a special-interest group. Mothers Against Drunk Driving is a special-interest group, and so is the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. 

The idea for a law surfaces and if a lawmaker thinks it has merit, the code reviser drafts the bill, the bill gets introduced in the House or Senate and other lawmakers might sign the bill as co-sponsors. Let’s say it’s a House bill.

Once a bill is introduced, it gets referred to the appropriate committee, where it may or may not receive a public hearing. That’s up to the chair of the committee. The public hearing is when citizens have a formal opportunity to weigh in for or against a bill, but throughout the entire process they can and do make their voices heard, through emails, letters, phone calls, public gatherings, letters to the editor, and personal visits with lawmakers.

Without a hearing, a bill is essentially dead, but a hearing is no guarantee that a bill has a future. To live another day, the bill must be “exec’d,” which is legislative shorthand for a process known as executive action. While being exec’d the bill can be, and often is, amended by a majority vote of the committee, and then another majority vote is required to give it a “do-pass” recommendation. If the bill makes it over that bar (most don’t), it’s on to the Rules Committee, a bipartisan panel that meets — in public, like the rest of the process — to decide which bills will move on to a possible vote by the full House. If it has a fiscal note, it goes straight to a fiscal committee and then on to Rules, if it survives. We think of fiscal committees as “graveyards for bills.”

Now on to the House floor. If a bill comes up for a vote, it can get amended here, too, by any member of the body.

If it passes, the bill heads to the Senate and begins the whole process again, just like in the House.

If the bill is OK’d by the Senate without them changing so much as a comma, it is transmitted to the governor, who can sign it into law, veto it entirely, or veto parts of it and sign the rest of it into law.

But if changes are made in the Senate, the bill must be returned to the House and considered in its amended form. If the House accepts the Senate changes, it goes to the governor. If not, we’re in for some extended negotiations that might produce an agreed-upon bill for the governor’s consideration. If no agreement is reached, the bill dies.

This whole journey is, and should be, long and arduous; it is designed to winnow out those bills that don’t have a genuine reason to exist. As Americans, we’ve been conducting this noble experiment in self-government for more than two centuries, and while we may not do it perfectly every time, it’s the best system ever devised. I’m privileged to have a small part in it.