Recommend to the floor is one of the processes a bill must undergo in order for it to become a law. Recommendation happens in the introduction and referral of bills.
The bill is referred to the appropriate committee by the Speaker of the House or the presiding officer in the Senate. Bills may be referred to more than one committee and it may be split so that parts are sent to different committees.
In the House, a bill is introduced when it is dropped in the hopper (a wooden box on the House floor). In the Senate, the bill is submitted to clerks on the Senate floor.
In the House, bills then are referred by the Speaker, on the advice of the nonpartisan parliamentarian, to all committees that have jurisdiction over the provisions in the bill, as determined by the chamber’s standing rules and past referral decisions. Most bills fall under the jurisdiction of one committee. If multiple committees are involved and receive the bill, each committee may work only on the portion of the bill under its jurisdiction. One of those committees will be designated the primary committee of jurisdiction and will likely take the lead on any action that may occur.
In the Senate, bills are typically referred to committee in a similar process, though in almost all cases, the bill is referred to only the committee with jurisdiction over the issue that predominates in the bill. In a limited number of cases, a bill might not be referred to committee, but instead be placed directly on the Senate Calendar of Business through a series of procedural steps on the floor.
Bills and joint resolutions may become law if enacted during the two-year Congress in which they were introduced.
For more info, go to VoteSmart.org and Congress.gov.
Check out explanations of terms and phrases describing U.S. Congress practice from CenteronCongress.org.