I'm skilled just to build.

K-Bill, you certainly have a lot of patience and courage.

Well, I got this far. When I started, I wasn't even a bill. I was just an idea.

We already did this.

We did how a bill really becomes a law.

And I'm even putting a link to it in the show notes so that we can put the cabash on the whole schoolhouse rock thing.

That's fair. That little hopeful 1970s animated scrap of paper has gotten a lot of airtime here on Civics 101.

Fine. But Hannah, I want to focus on that first step of the legislative process and just that first step.

And to do it, I would like you to imagine a senator.

Lion in bed, unable to sleep, tossing and turning all night.

What could be interrupting their slumber?

Well, over the weekend, the senator was in their home state and they went for a walk along the beach and they saw to their abject horror.

A flotilla of trash, bottles and cans and plastic bags carpeting the shore and the vision of it haunts their sleep.

How awful. Something must be done.

Something must be done, exactly. And just before dawn, inspiration strikes.

The weary senator flies back to DC, takes out a pen, writes some words down and silently hands it to the senate clerk.

Sounds like a Frank Capra film.

And this bill goes through committee. It's voted on, Claude Rain shows up and eventually it makes its way to the desk of the president to be signed into law.

Our senator watching on with a tear in the eye.

It's a story that I would really love to watch in a cold night, you know.

But it's not really how laws are written, is it?

No, not even remotely.

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