What is the Legislative Process of Re-authorization?
A. The re-authorization process starts at the committee level. On the House side, the key committee is the Education and Labor Committee, and because the House is much larger than the Senate, they usually split re-authorization work between various subcommittees. On the Senate side, the key committee is known as the HELP Committee, which stands for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Here, because the Senate is much smaller, the work of reauthorization will be done by the full committee. The committees then hold hearings and request input, and then the bill undergoes the mark-up process, which involves proposed changes in the form of amendments. After this is finished, votes are taken on the amendments or packages of amendments and the subcommittees or committee will vote to report out a bill that then is scheduled for debate on the floor of the Senate and House. If the House and Senate pass different bills, a conference committee consisting of Senators and House members from both s
