Portal talk:Acts of the United States Congresses/Acts of the 111th United States Congress

Enrolled bills

Let's discuss it here.

"Enrolled Bills" are passed by both houses, but not Acts of Congress. Why? The President may veto and that veto may be overridden or may be sustained. I know that's speculative, but the line must be drawn at a rational place. Enrolled bills are not enforceable as statutes. Enrolled bills have no legal standing other than parts of the process to becoming law. They are like proposed regulations that have not been finalized (in the exec. branch) or draft opinions that have not been issued (in the jud. branch).

—Markles 20:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Please put and maintain the list on your 111th Congress page under Proposed Legislation over at Wikipedia or your position has little credibility with me I'm sorry to say. You're not going to argue that Enrolled legislation doesn't hold enough merit to be listed as such there do you?? ...or that they don't merit a listing because they are not "major" enough (who's deterimining that degree anyway?)

I suppose the various Concurrent and Joint Resolutions in both Houses that affects the final enacted legislation in some way, shape or form but doesn't neccessarily have Presidential endorsement by signature do not qualify as an Act/act of Congress in your view too?

— George Orwell III (talk) 20:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• The President's signature is not a mere formality. Passage by one committee is not enough. Passage by one house is not enough. Passage of different bills by both houses is not enough. Passage of the same bill by both houses is not enough. It must be signed by Prez or go through the veto process. It's not a small detail.
• Joint resolutions are Acts of Congress and must face the Prez's consideration as well.
• Concurrent resolutions do not face the Prez, but are only binding upon the Congress itself (used only for legislative procedure, etc)
• I would GLADLY welcome a list of Proposed legislation. You could even put it on this same page. Just make sure you label it "proposed." Enrolled is just part of the process, not the end of it.—Markles 22:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

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The President's signature is not a mere formality.

• nor is it an Act/act of Congress. His signature enacts the legislation into law - FINE. Please explain how legislation presented to the Presented and not enacted upon with 10 days while Congress is in Session becomes a law as well. Please explain how a veto override also enacts legislation into law. Neither of these two requires a signature by the President right?
  • True, those also enact the statute. But until one of those methods happens, it's not a law, just a bill.

Joint resolutions are Acts of Congress and must face the Prez's consideration as well.

• Please explain how legislation presented to the Presented and not enacted upon with 10 days while Congress is in Session becomes a law as well. Signature has no bearing in the general category of act/Act of Congress (or the wiki category of United States Federal law if you prefer).
  • True, that enacts the statute. But until then, it's just a bill, not a law.

Concurrent resolutions do not face the Prez, but are only binding upon the Congress itself (used only for legislative procedure, etc)

• Yet these wikisource pages include a Resolutions section header which I assumed was there to include those acts by one, the other or both Houses of Congress that do just that. It's not there for the Joint Resolutions that go before the President and get signed - those become public laws - right?? So the logic is that some pieces of legislation passed by one, the other or both Houses merits listing even though they are not binding Federal laws but enrolled legislation does not - correct?

• OK, they're not Acts of Congress. Feel free to delete them.

Just make sure you label it "proposed."

• See this, this, this and this. You are trying to say that only signed bills should be listed on page title Acts of the such-n-such Congress and if that's true than this entire wikisource list is improperly set up. I've tweaked the Pending heading further and feel that is enough

Enrolled is just part of the process, not the end of it.

• Of course the idea of creating a "proposed" legislation sub-directory begs for it to contain a listing of as much of current pending legislation as possible. This is unrealistic and that is why -- Passage by one committee is not enough. Passage by one house is not enough. Passage of different bills by both houses is not enough. --BUT-- Passage of the same bill by both houses IS enough. Enrolled bills are an Act/act of Congress just as Engrossed bills are Act/acts of the which ever side of Congress passed it - House or Senate.

-- George Orwell III (talk) 23:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• The CSPAN definition is weak, and includes: "Finally, it is also properly used when a measure has been enacted into law, receiving the approval of the President". The "Yourdictionary" definition says: "in accordance with the powers granted to it by the United States Constitution" (which mandates Prez or 10 days, or more. I have no idea what the GPO thing for kids is talking about because it can't be an Act of Congress if one house passes it and it dies in conference committee. The FreeDictionary quote is nice, but it avoids the necessity of further action. This is all basic 8th grade civics. It's not an Act of Congress until the Prez signs, 10 days passes or a veto is overridden. It's just not enough. I know that all of this bills that are presented to the President are VERY likely to be signed by him (considering the current political state), but they very seriously are not enacted until EITHER approved by the Prez, 10 days elapse, or a veto is overridden. They can not be enforced until then. Sometimes the Prez hurries to sign (Terry Schaivo law) or takes his time. But UNTIL THEN, they are just bills. —Markles 23:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

But UNTIL THEN, they are just bills.

• ... and the Resolutions section header was included as a part of article pages because they are enforceable laws??? You see it's kind of hard to accept your premise given what's outlined in wikipedia Act of Congress (which is the only reason other sources were cited}. I'm more of the opinion the entire wikisource list(ings) were improperly labeled to begin with and that is why this circular argument exists.
• you didn't say if the section reordering & labeling provides you with enough not to arbitrarily delete the list now.

-- George Orwell III (talk) 00:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposed Finished & Complete Fifty

I'm proposing that as each group of fifty Public Laws are created as Congress moves thru its session and therefore extemely unlikely to be altered in any way, we move away from using a "list" and use a table instead since editing and tweaking capabilities are no longer realy required at that point. It provides better readability for those Public Laws at the same time.

• The table proposed (minus the the headers for each column) was moved to the front George Orwell III (talk) 01:47, 12 August 2009 (UTC)