The Legislative Process

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Contrary to popular belief, the process of legislation in actual fact was, in its incipient stages, not at all in any danger of being called a process. in the main it consisted of lawmakers meeting in a designated room at designated times, arranged with some difficulty, and involved discussing the problems of the day, which where many, and flouting there achievements, which were few.

History

The Parliament and its procedures where actually created in reverse order. i.e. first came Democracy, circa 500 B.C, which grew to accommodate, with tremendous difficulty and discomfort, Representation, which by definition required, in so far as this representation traversed down the social ladder low enough to accept any riffraff with an id card, who is willing to trudge over to an election center and elect one of his kind. the need to make and define Parliament and its Procedure. However, as noted above this was a process heavily intertwined with historical artifacts as arguably everything else is too, but since it is especially true in this case. we shall abstract and avoid all potential historical discussion by feigning, by way of nodding that all procedures herein discussed contain within them the appropriate amount of historical vestiges, thereby allowing as to skip through details which in future would have impeded in at least as much as they would have aided us.

Process

The following is a necessarily simplified account of the legislative process. we will use as a case study an Anti-Bestiality Law.

Bill Goes to Washington

Before a Bill becomes law it must first make its way to the rigamarole that is the Parliamentary Process. there are various ways to introduce a bill all of which require a sponsor who must be powerful, rich or in the House of Representatives. whatever method is employed in sponsoring a bill it must first make its way to the first House, i.e the House of Representatives where you will find a wooden box called the hopper. this is where, whatever law proposed is placed, whence it is retrieved by a cleric and given a bill number.

On 17 August 2003 Mr. Bill Redmond was filmed being brutalized by a team of horses. thereafter Mr Redmond died of acute colitis. in the film he describes a sharp pain radiating from his anus which was in fact letter conformed to be his colon; this outraged the public to such a degree that multiple house members immediately sponsored a bill to outlaw the act.

On the morning of the eve of the second week from the incident, Rep Finicky Hand gave the bill to the clerk who then deposited it to the hopper. Rep. Hand was the depositor for many bills, an action his colleague endearingly called a Hand job.

Committees

At this stage the difficulty of ascertaining the correct committee to refer the bill to arose. some believed it should be referred to the Agriculture Committee as that was the closest to the subject matter, however, in the end it was agreed to create an ad-hoc committee which was later named the Human-Animal Interaction Committee and was populated by House members in accordance with another niggling procedural rule. many experts where invited, animal experts were invited, as were members of the public. the press invited themselves.

Round and Round

From this time on it is refereed to different committees who may have even the slightest connection to the bill. the bill in our example was paraded around the whole of Washington by the time it returned back to the house. passed around, as it were, like Mr Bill himself. a few of the committees referred to include the Budget Commission, to make sure the bill does not encroach upon the already stretched thin $3,000,000,000,000 budget, the Homeland Security Committee, in order to establish if this act was a threat to Domestic life, Agriculture Committee, whether the horses should be shot. et cetera.

Back to The Floor

The Haste with which the bill came back to the house surprised many and an immediate roll-coll was called. since there where no objection or sides, at least ostensibly. however, when it came time to vote it seemed the bill was going back to the committee for review. this would have been the quietest way to kill the bill, to Burke the bill, and it was seeming that there was an invisible force guiding the whole situation, but in the end the culprit holding up the passing was ,it turns out, non other than Rep. Hand himself. his reason for doing so was not obvious at first, but on further prying he confessed his selfish plan "My Dog,Coco, was on her last legs and i couldn't pass up the chance of having her on all fours". he said. and thusly the issue being resolved, it was voted unanimously to the senate. if it weren't for bad-blood between the rep and the speaker he could have had her sit on the bill so as to presumably quash it. however, since he couldn't, He was forced to go the route of sending the bill back to the committee so that they could table it and convince everyone that they never had it.

To The Senate

What happened in the house is repeated in the senate but here with the false belief of heightened consequence.

Senate Committees

Senatorial Iterations of House Committees. bill passed after some deliberation. an unnamed source attributed the delay to the affiliation of one committee member to PETA. He was hissed out. tabling is most effective here owing to the senility of at least half the senate.

Confer and Concur

Conference between houses is required so that concurrence is achieved between houses. so a conferring system is in order and is fulfilled by a conferring body.

Senate Votes

The senators vote. "This bill was hard to filibuster" and was summarily passed.

Presidential Signature

The President who was considered by many as a panjandrum signed the bill immediately and vowed not to forgive a single turkey during the remainder of this term or the next one should he be re-elected, this became a part of his official campaign manifesto starting early 2004.

Conclusions

The bill became law and Mr. Redmond was found guilty of the law defying the fact that the legislature can not adjudicate for reasons not least of which is because Judges need qualification and skill. nevertheless they tried him first 'in absentia' but unsatisfied tried him later 'in memorandum'.

Excerpts

"A person is guilty of animal cruelty in the first degree when, except as authorized in law, they intentionally (a) inflicts substantial pain on,

(b) causes physical injury to, or

(c) kills an animal by a means causing undue suffering or while manifesting an extreme indifference to life, or forces a minor to inflict unnecessary pain, injury, or death on an animal."

"(8) For purposes of this section:

(a) "Animal" means every creature, either alive or dead, other than a human being. [This distinction was made so as not to invalidate human rape laws which are still a real and distinct Menace]

(b) "Sexual conduct" means any touching or fondling by a person, either directly or through clothing, of the sex organs or anus of an animal or any transfer or transmission of semen by the person upon any part of the animal, for the purpose of sexual gratification or arousal of the person.[Notably lacking are rules against sex acts involving hoofs, tails and ears]

(c) "Sexual contact" means any contact, however slight, between the mouth, sex organ, or anus of a person and the sex organ or anus of an animal, or any intrusion, however slight, of any part of the body of the person into the sex organ or anus of an animal, or any intrusion of the sex organ or anus of the person into the mouth of the animal, for the purpose of sexual gratification or arousal of the person."[The insanity of "intrusion of the sex organ ... into the mouth of the animal" could not have been lost on any man, however old, and yet it stands as law.]

References

Animal Molestation Codified