Congressional Bill Template printable pdf download

How to Write a Bill

One of the most important responsibilities of a member of Congress is writing legislation.

Legislation is how Congress actually makes laws. Here is information on how to write your

legislation, as well as a template you can use.

The first part of the bill is the header information. This information doesn’t make law, but it is

extremely important. Most of this is standard language. You will only need to fill in two blanks, your

name and the title of your bill. The rest of the blanks will be filled in by the Presiding Officer or

Clerk when you introduce your bill.

You will need to give your bill a title. The full title of the bill that goes here is usually a long title that

simply explains what the bill will do. In the bill itself, you will often put a short title which is a

simpler and easier way to refer to the bill. For example, Sen. John Cornyn has introduced a bill

about prison reform. The full title of the bill is “to reduce recidivism and increase public safety, and

for other purposes.” The short title is the “CORRECTIONS Act: (which stands for the Corrections

Oversight, Recidivism Reduction, and Eliminating Costs for Taxpayers In Our National System act

of 2015”).

Now that the header information is done, you are ready to write your bill. A bill will always start

with the enactment clause “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United

States in Congress assembled.” You now start a section 1 and begin writing your actual legislation.

As we go through this template and explain how to write a bill, I want to note that you may not

need to use all the sections or you may need more sections. If you need to remove or add a section,

you can do that and then number the rest of the sections accordingly. There is no maximum to how

many sections a bill may have. Also, this is a simple version of a bill. Some bills may be more

complex, but this simple version should be all you will need. Most bills will have

The first section is normally the short title. As I explained above, the short title is a simple, easy to

remember title that you can use to refer to the bill.

The next section is the explanation of terminology (or “Definitions”). Some terms in your bill

may need to be defined. If you want to ensure that your bill is interpreted to mean what you want it

to mean, you will want to define terms that could be defined or interpreted multiple different ways.

This section is to make your bill clear and understandable. However, you may not need to define any

terms. Each term that you are defining will be its own subsection.

Section 3 is the actual lawmaking part of the bill. This is where you say what the bill is going to

do. This may take multiple sections. A bill should be written so that each individual thing the bill is

doing will be its own section.

You may also need a section on how the bill will be funded. If your bill requires money, you will

want to state how much money will be spent and from where the money will come. (Please note,

this is a difference at iGovern from how it works in Congress. In Congress, rarely will a bill

Congressional Bill Template