Info Brief: How Congress Works Today

Learn about how Congress operates today.

When the Founders designed Congress, they feared that it would be the most dangerous branch of the new national government. Therefore, the Founders divided power between two Houses: a House and a Senate. They hoped that this bicameral structure would block unwise policies driven by self-interest and passion and promote deliberation and reasoned compromise.

Alexander Hamilton put it well in Federalist No. 70:

“The differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties in [Congress], though they may sometimes obstruct salutary plans, yet often promote deliberation and circumspection, and serve to check excesses in the majority.”

Or consider how Colleen Sheehan, a leading scholar of James Madison, described the Founders’ vision of constitutional politics:

“Madison’s overall aim was not to stymie the will of the majority, but rather to place obstacles in the path of factions, including majority factions. At the same time, he sought to facilitate the development of a just majority, or in other words, the reason of the public. . . . Too swift and facile political communication allows the mere will of the majority, or sheer power, to rule in the regime. The slow, measured process of the communication of ideas, however, refines and modifies the will of the society, subjecting power to the test of right reason.”

This deliberative vision is reflected in how Congress was designed and how it was supposed to work—with many complicated steps requiring both Houses, and ultimately the President, to agree before a bill becomes a law.

How Does Congress Work

So, how does Congress work? How does a bill become a law? And what role do the other branches of the national government—the President and the courts—play in the legislative process? These are big questions, and the Constitution lays out a demanding—often slow—process for passing new laws. This is by design.

The Founders thought that a slow legislative process would promote deliberation and compromise—and guard against abuses by powerful factions. (Today, we would call these factions “parties.”) To become a law, a new bill must survive both Houses of Congress, the threat of a President’s veto, and possible legal challenges inside the courts. That’s hard to do!

The Founding generation’s theory? Kill the bad ideas, revise the flawed ones, and refine the good ones. Over time, by slowing the process down, national policy would promote the common good.

Here’s how the process works today:

Members in one House of Congress—either the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate—introduce a bill. (Spending bills must start in the House of Representatives.)
From there, both Houses of Congress must pass the bill.
Once the bill passes the House and the Senate, it’s then sent to the President. The President then has the option to veto—in other words, reject—the bill.
If the President approves of the bill, then it becomes a law.
If she vetoes it, then Congress has the power to override the President’s veto by a two-thirds vote in each House of Congress. This is a really high bar—often requiring the support of members of both political parties. If Congress succeeds in overriding the President’s veto, then the bill becomes a law.
If Congress fails to override the President’s veto, then the bill does not become a law—even though both Houses of Congress originally passed it.
Finally, even after a bill becomes a law, people can go to court and challenge that law—arguing that it violates the Constitution. From there, the courts have the power to rule on whether a law is constitutional or unconstitutional. This is the power of judicial review.

Congress in Action: The Civil Rights Acts

Now let’s look at this process in action, with two examples of civil rights legislation.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866

After the Civil War, African Americans still faced major barriers to political, economic, and social equality. As we will discuss in later units on this era (known as Reconstruction), many white Southerners continued to attack Black Americans even after the Civil War ended. The Republican-controlled Reconstruction Congress tried a variety of policies to fulfill Reconstruction’s promise of freedom and equality.

One of those measures was the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first piece of national civil rights legislation in American history. The bill aimed to define citizenship and insist that all citizens, regardless of race, were equally protected by national law. This Act was, in many ways, a precursor to the Fourteenth Amendment.

Senator Lyman Trumbull introduced the bill in the Senate, which passed it 33-12. The bill then went to the House, which passed it 111-38. The bill then, like all bills, went to the President for final approval.

But here, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 faced a hurdle: President Andrew Johnson, who had become President after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was an opponent of the Republican vision for Reconstruction, and he vetoed the bill. In his statement sending the bill back to Congress, he wrote:

“In all our history, in all our experience as a people living under Federal and State law, no such system as that contemplated by the details of this bill has ever before been proposed or adopted. They establish for the security of [African Americans] safeguards which go indefinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of [African Americans] against the white race...”

Congress exercised its power to override Johnson’s veto, enshrining the Civil Rights Act of 1866 into law. The Senate voted 33-15 to push the bill through, and the House followed 122-41. Notice how each of the steps we outlined above mapped onto this important episode in American history.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

Another episode, from the next century, shows how the courts can be involved in this lawmaking process, too.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is regarded as one of the biggest legislative accomplishments in American history. At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, it outlawed racial discrimination, racial segregation in schools, employment discrimination, and discrimination of any kind on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or sex. It was a major victory for equality.

The Act passed through the same process we’ve been discussing. President John F. Kennedy asked Congress to pass such legislation, but it was halted by a Senate filibuster. After Kennedy was assassinated, the Civil Rights Movement pushed President Lyndon B. Johnson to place what would become the Civil Rights Act back onto Congress’s agenda. The House passed the bill, and the Senate followed soon after in a dramatic, close vote. Then, Johnson signed the bill into law just a few hours later.

But the story doesn’t end there! As we mentioned earlier, even after legislation is passed, people often try to challenge the legislation in courts. And the Civil Rights Act was no different.

The Civil Rights Act applied not only to public sector (think government) employers and practices, but to private sector ones too. And shortly after the Civil Rights Act passed, some private sector employers tried to challenge the law’s application to the private sector as unconstitutional.

The Heart of Atlanta Motel decided to violate the law to trigger a constitutional challenge in court. After the Act was passed, the Motel continued to deny rooms and services to African American patrons. The case ultimately reached the Supreme Court, and the Motel argued that discrimination is a private wrong that private individuals are free to commit, and, therefore, Congress did not have the authority to pass the Civil Rights Act to regulate the discrimination of private businesses.

Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States was a landmark Supreme Court case. The Court rejected the Motel’s argument, defending and upholding the Civil Rights Act and its application to private discrimination as well as public discrimination. The Court cited the Commerce Clause as Congress’s authority to pass such sweeping legislation—and the Civil Rights Act survived, transforming America.

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