Civil Government of Virginia | Page 8

and Speaker of the House of Delegates shall receive, each, $240, and the other members, each, $120. Members are entitled to mileage.
In addition to his salary each member of the Assembly receives ten cents per mile for expenses of traveling to and from the sessions of the Assembly. This allowance is called mileage.
Bills may originate in either of the two houses. No bill shall become a law until it has been read on three different days in each house except by a vote of four-fifths of the members voting in each house.
Every bill which shall have passed the Senate and House of Delegates shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the Governor; if he approve, he shall sign it and it is then a law, but if not, he shall return it with his objections to the house in which it originated; who shall proceed to reconsider it. If after such consideration two-thirds of the members present shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent to the other house, by which it shall be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of all the members present, it shall become a law, notwithstanding the objections of the Governor.
He may also veto any particular item of an appropriation bill, but this item may also be passed over his veto by a two-thirds vote of both houses.
If any bill shall not be returned by the Governor within five days after it shall have been presented to him, it shall be a law in like manner as if he had signed it.
A bill is a draft or statement of a proposed law. A bill may originate in either house--that is, it may be first proposed in either the Seriate or House of Delegates. Any senator or delegate who wishes to have a new law made must first put it in writing. Then he himself introduces or proposes it in the house of which he is a member, or it may be introduced by a committee.
A committee is a number of persons, usually not a large number, appointed by a legislature or other body to take charge of and attend to some particular business. The members of the House of Delegates and of the Senate are divided into committees, and some special subject or business is entrusted to each. For example, in the Senate there are committees on Privileges and Elections, Public Institutions and Education, and many other subjects; and in the House of Delegates there are committees on Courts of Justice, Schools and Colleges, and other subjects.
Usually proposals for new laws are referred for consideration to the committee having charge of the subject or business to which the proposed law relates. Committees in the Senate are elected by the senators themselves; committees in the House of Delegates are appointed by the speaker.
When a new law or bill is introduced it is either proposed by a committee, or by some member and given for consideration to a committee. In order to pass, it must be read three times on three different days (once each day) in the house in which it originates.
The first reading is the formal placing or presenting of the bill before the house. At the second reading the bill is discussed, and any member who wishes to say anything for or against it is at liberty to do so.
Amendments may also be proposed at the second reading. An amendment is an alteration or a change in the wording or matter of a bill. After an amendment is discussed the house votes upon it, and if a majority is for it, the change is made in the bill.
When all amendments are discussed and voted on, a vote is taken on the bill as a whole, and if a majority of the members vote for it, it is read a second time.
It is then engrossed, or written out, by the clerk of the house, and read a third time, after which a vote is again taken, and if there is a majority for it, it passes the house.
When the bill is passed in the house in which it originated, it is taken to the other house by the sergeant-at-arms. There it goes through the same forms of reading and discussion, and if it be read three times and have a majority in its favor it is passed. It is then enrolled, after which it is signed by the presiding officer in each house, and when this is done it is sent to the governor for his signature.
The sergeant-at-arms is an officer whose duty it is to preserve order in the chamber where the sessions of either house are held, to distribute among the members any papers or documents they may require, and in general to perform such services as are necessary