If a measure can never become law, why vote on it at all?
About one measure in 7 that Congress introduces can never become a law, and was never meant to. This lesson teaches students to read the prefix on a measure and know, before reading a word of it, what it can and cannot do. Then it asks what the other kind is for, which turns out to be most of how a chamber runs itself.
Ways to run it
- Straight through. The screen opens with the guess, lays out the eight prefixes, shows the split, then takes the two non-law kinds one at a time. The sheet carries the same table and six questions. students finish by finding one live measure of each of the eight types on congress.gov, in class or at home.
- The sheet on its own. No projector needed, and it works for a substitute. The prefix table is on the handout, so nothing is lost except the held-back guess, which becomes a written one.
- Ten minutes at the front of another lesson. Screens 1 to 3 alone, the guess, the eight prefixes and the split, are a decoder for every other lesson on this site that counts measures. Worth doing before anything that quotes a rate.
- Open and close with the screen, improvise the middle. Screen 1 is the guess and the last screen is the exit ticket. The four in between are yours to take in any order, and they do not depend on each other.
Worth knowing before you teach it
- The joint resolution is the whole difficulty
- H.J.Res. and S.J.Res. have "resolution" in the name and are laws in every other respect: same process, same signature, same force. Nearly every wrong answer in this lesson comes from sorting on the word rather than the prefix. It is also the only way Congress proposes a constitutional amendment, which then goes to the states and never to the President.
- The continuing resolution is usually a bill
- The one in the news when funding runs out is often not a resolution at all. The September 2023 one was H.R. 5860. If a student brings this up, it is the lesson making its own point: the nickname is not the prefix.
- Why the count matters elsewhere
- A count of "measures introduced" mixes the two kinds, and 14 in every 100 of them could never become law. Any rate about how many bills become law has to leave the non-law kinds out of the bottom of the fraction. This site published a figure that did not, and it was wrong by more than a factor of five.
- The answers
- Numbered as on the handout. The Can or Cannot column: H.R., S., H.J.Res. and S.J.Res. can; H.Con.Res., S.Con.Res., H.Res. and S.Res. cannot. 1. About 14 in 100. 2. No: the four kinds that can never become law belong out of the bottom of the fraction. 3. No single right answer. A House rule resolution decides which amendments a bill may even receive, and the budget resolution sets the year's ceiling; either one is a vote that shapes what is possible without ever becoming law. 4. Never true for the four resolution kinds that cannot become law; only part of the story for H.R. and H.J.Res., which still need the Senate and the President. 5. To the states. Three-fourths of them must ratify it, and the President has no part in it. 6. No single right answer.
What to expect from the room
- The first reaction
- "Why bother with a resolution that does nothing?" Push on "nothing". A House rule resolution decides which amendments a bill can even receive; the budget resolution sets the ceiling for the year. Some of the most consequential votes a member takes are on measures that can never be law.
- The question that makes it land
- "If your school board could pass a rule about its own meetings without the superintendent signing it, what would that be like?" That is a simple resolution, and students get it immediately.
- Where they push back
- Many think "the House passed it" means it is law. This lesson is where that gets corrected: passage in one chamber is a stage, and for four of the eight types it is not even a stage toward law.
- What not to say
- Do not rank the types. A resolution honoring a local team is not less legitimate than a bill; it is a different tool. The lesson is about reading, not about which measures deserve to exist.
If you have longer, or an older class
The budget resolution, and a vote that never gets a signature
A concurrent resolution needs both chambers and never goes to the President. The annual budget resolution is one, and it sets the framework the year's spending bills have to fit inside. Tracing one of them is a period on how Congress binds itself without passing a law, and it answers the compelling question better than any argument does.
Proposing a constitutional amendment
The one thing only a joint resolution can start. Two-thirds of both chambers, then three-fourths of the states, and the President has no part in it at any stage. Have the class find a live H.J.Res. proposing an amendment and work out how far it would have to travel. Most have gone nowhere, which is its own finding.