How to write legislation {{ currentPage ? currentPage.title : "" }}

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Step-by-step

The first step in the legislative drafting process is identifying a problem to be solved. The next steps are developing a policy for solving it and fleshing out that policy in enough detail to draft effective legislation. Before proceeding to the drafting stage, however, it is important to ask whether the policy is best accomplished legislatively. Reasons that a legislative solution may not be appropriate include constitutional limitations, insurmountable problems with enforcement, and the difficulty of stating the policy with enough specificity.

Additionally, the policy may already be accomplished by existing statutes or regulations, or it may be preferable to try to persuade an agency to enforce existing law differently. If new, binding legislation is not appropriate or desirable, but Congress still wants to express its views on a policy, it may do so through a nonbinding resolution or sense of Congress provision.

Go to the key drafting questions >

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