Congress

CONGRESS
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Constitutionally, Congress holds the most important power of making laws in America. Congress comprises of both the House of Representatives and The Senate. The two houses were established to prevent one house from having absolute power. During law making process, a bill only becomes a law after the two houses approves it after debating on it. Different ideas generated from several institutions forms a bill that is submitted by one of the members of the house for debate. Both houses have to debate on the bill before being assented into law by the president. This process takes one year, and if the process is not fully complete, the bill is dropped and given another chance to be reintroduced. In both houses of the Congress, political parties play significant roles in leadership that affects passing of bill into law. The majority holds key position like speaker, who determines the flow of the debates in the houses. Congress also have four different committees where bills are presented for hearings before submitted for debate in the two houses. The hearings are meant to get further inputs from different interest groups who influence perspective and the passing of the bill, later. These committees include, joint committee, select committees, standing committee, and conference committees. 
An omnibus bill gives provision for several issues to be debated at the same time that are considered closely related. For example, a budget bill can also discuss the laws related to its appropriation among other aspects. Due to the extent of such bills, debates are limited because limited time is allocated for close scrutiny. Omnibus bills are sometimes used to pass controversial amendments making it be termed an undemocratic process.
Omnibus bill is written in a way that complement each other, meaning that changing or amending one bill would require other related bills to be altered. For example, in agriculture, if regulations are amended, other related regulations also have to conform to the adjustments. If dairy farming regulation is amended, the inspection and other related regulation will have to change. All these changes are to be debated at the same time in congress; this is different compared to if a single bill was presented. One of the examples is the gargantuan omnibus bill that contained several earmarks that needed close scrutiny before being passed. It contained, “$ 277,000 for potato pest management in Wisconsin, $ 246,000 for bovine tuberculosis in Michigan, $400,000 for solar parking canopies in Kansas and Minnesota among others.” This bill had close to 6,000 earmarks that needed to be debated separately that led to its ejection for reconsiderati...