92 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
Any citizen who is interested has a perfect right to appear before a 
legislative committee and state his reasons for favoring or opposing any 
bill and is entitled to and will almost invariably receive a respectful 
hearing. 
As already stated meritorious measures are often defeated in committee 
hands, one method pursued is by secret ballot in the committee to recom- 
mend the bill for indefinite postponement. Usually the recommendation 
of a committee is adopted by the larger body and the reason is obvious. 
In the House of the Thirty-second General Assembly over 400 bills were 
introduced. It would have been utterly impossible for each member to 
make a careful study of the merits and demerits of each bill. Therefore 
the work is divided among committees, the members of the committee 
make a careful study of the bills which come to them and report them 
back to the main body either recommending them for passage or indefi- 
nite postponement, and the report of the committee is usually adopted. 
Then after the bill is reported favorably by the committee and the report 
adopted by the larger body the bill takes its place on the calendar and 
comes a few days later in its regular order for passage. During the time 
that this bill is on the calendar all members study the merits and demerits 
of the bill that they may speak intelligently and vote intelligently when 
the bill comes up for passage. 
However, there are other dangers that the bill will meet while in the 
hands of the committee. The method that put to death the Doran speed 
limit bill and other bills that had passed the House of the Thirty-second 
General Assembly was to delay hearings and hold the bills in the hands 
of the committee until the closing days of the session when a large amount 
of work has piled up and then shove measures objectionable to some in- 
fluential interests to one side and let them die without consideration. 
In the Senate of the Thirty-second General Assembly a sifting committee 
was appointed a few days before the close and all pending bills were 
turned over to this committee. A resolution was then passed providing 
that only such bills as had been favorably reported by their committees 
should be considered by the Senate and thus was the speed limit and other 
good bills killed. Another effective scheme to kill a bill is to amend it in 
such a way that it will not serve the purpose desired, then even its 
friends will be ready to kill it. This plan is resorted to in both the com- 
mittee and the main body. After the bill has successfully passed through 
the committee and received the aye vote of a majority of the members 
of the body in which it was introduced it is then messaged to the other 
body and there must be read, referred to the proper committee for con- 
sideration and pass through the same formalities as in the first body. 
If the bill receives the aye vote of a majority of the members of the 
second body it is declared to have passed, is then engrossed and enrolled, 
is carefully read by the committee on enrolled bills to avoid errors, re- 
ceives the signature of the Speaker of the House in the presence of the 
House and the signature of the President of the Senate in the presence 
of the Senate. After which the bill is presented by the committee of 
the house in which it is origniated to the Governor for his approval be- 
fore it can become a law. 
