8 ms·

Probably a silly question, but is there a reason all these 'additions' are being snuck into bills and what not? Why does the system allow members of congress t

• uremog 11y ago
  It's common because politics often works like that and nothing disallows it. "I'll vote for your [x] if you vote for my [y]". I definitely dislike it but just saying, sometimes that's why.
• lukeschlather 11y ago
  What you're suggesting is essentially banning formal expressions of compromise. Compromise is essential for legislation to get made.
  • EvanAnderson 11y ago
    Compromise is essential for legislation to happen, but I also don't think riders really are a form of compromise. It's an underhanded tactic.
    • lukeschlather 11y ago
      How do you suggest a formally agreed-upon compromise without merging two separate topics into one bill?
      • jessriedel 11y ago
        It was my vague understanding that there is some very low bar for attaching riders, so that members can kill a bill they don't like by attaching a poison pill. If so, the answer would be "make the amendment process require more votes" or something like that. I'd very much like an clear explanation of how the amendment process works.
        • dragonwriter 11y ago
          > It was my vague understanding that there is some very low bar for attaching riders, so that members can kill a bill they don't like by attaching a poison pill. Floor amendments are voted on just like bills, and require a majority vote to pass. The way that it can be relatively "easy" for certain members to get amendments attached to a bill is in committee, since the committee to which a bill is assigned can either let the original bill languish (though if the rest of the House wants the bill out of committee, it can be pulled out) and adopt and report out an entirely new bill, on the same subject, with amendments, or report out the original bill with committee amendments as a package which are voted on together (this would be part of the rule for the bill, and this rule is, itself, subject to vote.)
          • jessriedel 11y ago
            Thanks very much. That was useful. It still seems like there's a possibility that a large minority, who will vote against the bill no matter what, can attach a rider that appeals to a subset of the majority that's in favor of the bill but which will make the bill unpalatable to the rest of the supporting majority. But those kind of hypotheticals quickly devolve into complicated strategies, and it's not clear there's a better mechanism than the majority vote.
• chishaku 11y ago
  What passes as a "single topic?" Often, "additions" are included in these last-second, "must sign" bills because they face resistance and are unlikely to pass on their own. No representative, nor the president want to be responsible for a "government shutdown" so anything that makes it into the last version of the bill is likely to become law.
• nargella 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider_(legislation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider_(legislation) Riders are a terrible idea. This wiki does a good job at describing them and illustrating that other countries don't like the idea either.
• ashark 11y ago
  > Wouldn't a simple fix for things like this be 'only allow a new law proposal to be about a single topic and nothing else'? Define "topic" in a way that still lets legislators write useful laws while unequivocally disallowing the kind of thing you want to try to ban, and you can probably get published in a major poli-sci or philosophy journal.
  • harshreality 11y ago
    The perfect is the enemy of the good. We can start with this HN thread's subject, which is a budget bill. Can we at least agree that budgets should not touch the U.S. Code? That they should be simply allocating money from the treasury to various programs and agencies previously specified by law?
• dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Wouldn't a simple fix for things like this be 'only allow a new law proposal to be about a single topic and nothing else' Single-subject rules are adopted in many state, and they are neither complete solutions (viewing substantive subject-mixing as a problem), nor without their own potential problems. (And, anyway, to actually be mandatory, for Congress such a rule would have to be adopted through Constitutional amendment.) Further, its quite arguable that substantive subject mixing is not a problem, poor representation is, and trying to limit substantive subject mixing just creates a new problem; where reps are effectively representing the interests of their district, why shouldn't they be able to effectively legislate based on considerations like: 1. X, considered alone, is better for those I represent, on balance, than not-X, and should be supported, and 2. Y, considered alone, is worse for those I represent, on balance, than not-Y, and should be opposed, but 3. X with Y, considered together, is better for those I represent than not-X with not-Y, thus, the combination of X and Y should be supported if X cannot be secured alone. (While other representatives, with different constituents with different interests, see the same thing, but with X and Y reversed?) If you could effectively prohibit subject mixing, that would prohibit compromises that are net gains for larger groups, even if smaller gains for the most-favored groups. (Systems with parliamentary government with explicit coalition building essentially do massive subject mixing up-front in deciding the agenda of the coalition government when it is formed, and thus can avoid the need to do subject mixing when it comes to individual bills; the U.S. system works more on ad hoc coalition building, so the compromises are more on individual bills than anything analogous to the formation of a government in a parliamentary system.)
  • anonymfus 11y ago
    Then let's they first vote whether they want to mix X and Y, and then use ranked voting for deciding between 4 variants (X alone, Y alone, X and Y together, nothing).
    • shawn-furyan 11y ago
      Because you are opposed to the break neck pace at which congress currently operates? :P
  • 11y ago
• EvanAnderson 11y ago
  The "fix" for riders, in the past, has been the line-item veto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-item_veto_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-item_veto_in_the_United_S...), which allows the president to veto parts of legislation. It was passed in 1996, challenged, then struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1998.
  • dragonwriter 11y ago
    The line item veto, which purported to allow a kind-of, sort-of veto on spending items in budget bills was never (even had it been Constitutional) a solution to policy riders (whether on budget bills or otherwise.)
  • JoshTriplett 11y ago
    The most obvious problem with the line-item veto is that some things should stay together, such as a new program and the funding to pay for that program, or the repeal of one tax and the institution of another tax to replace it.
  • WildUtah 11y ago
    Before the 1974 Congressional Budget Act [0], it had been the law for 185 years that the president could simply refuse to spend money Congress had appropriated. He could hold back the cash even if he did spend other funds appropriated in the same law. That was the original line item veto. Then Nixon tried to exercise his power to target specific projects and congressmen with an aggressive rescission project and Congress changed the system. The current federal budget process was instituted in that law where Congress first authorizes all plausible spending and then appropriates only a smaller amount dedicated to specific programs and the president must spend that exact amount by law. Congress tried to compromise between the two systems with a line item veto managed by Congress in 1996. The courts weren't ready to let the executive and legislature share spending power, especially when they were likely to be the referees and the post-1974 system persists. Or, it persisted until about 1996. In recent years -- including all of the Obama presidency and the latter Bush years -- the Congressional budget process hasn't produced regular appropriations bills and has delivered only irregular authorizations. The process is supposed to produce at least twelve openly debated appropriations bills every year with participation by all of Congress. Instead a new system of continuing resolutions that limit all spending power to the president and the Senate majority leader and the House speaker in secret conferences has taken hold. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Impoundment_Control_Act_of_1974 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_and_Impou...
• Kalium 11y ago
  > Wouldn't a simple fix for things like this be 'only allow a new law proposal to be about a single topic and nothing else'? How do you define "a single topic"? Who gets to decide what is and isn't topical? Who gets to enforce it? Can you see how this definition might be abused for political gain? Myself, I see it only making things worse.
  • mhurron 11y ago
    > How do you define "a single topic"? The original bill. As in, no riders at all.
    • brianwawok 11y ago
      But does that change anything? "Party X votes no in favor of bill Z, but we will vote again if you introduce bill Y which is the exact same as bill Z except with a new section funding for building a shipyard in the congressional district of a popular guy in Party X"
    • dragonwriter 11y ago
      So, you'd prohibit all amendments, but allow unlimited mixing of unrelated subjects as long as they were incorporated in the original bill as proposed, so instead of adding riders to existing bills, politicians would let one measure die, and introduce a new one with the all the various mix of subjects (including the central focus of the old one) that would have been in the first measure with added riders. Aside from moving part of the action from formal amendment processes to informal processes, I don't see what change that gets you.
  • SapphireSun 11y ago
    Seems like it would fall to the judicial branch to decide if something is topical or not if it was that contested. However, that would lead to accusations of the judiciary being involved in making the law, though their power would be limited to splitting bills into smaller bills.
  • Someone1234 11y ago
    > Myself, I see it only making things worse. How? Unless you can show how it could make the situation actually worse, your argument doesn't hold. It would at least be "as bad as now" or better.
• spinlock 11y ago
  You know COBRA? That law that says you can buy insurance through your former employer after you leave the company. You know what COBRA stands for? Combined Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act Stuffing projects into the budget happens all the time. Basically, no one will negotiate in good faith on the merits of individual proposals so they play these tricks to get things passed into law.
  • LastZactionHero 11y ago
    Wow, thanks, I was thinking about COBRA yesterday and wondering what or stood for. Definitely not what I came up with...
  • pjungwir 11y ago
    I like to think one of my better skills as a developer is asking a lot of dumb questions, and one rule in particular is to always ask what new acronyms stand for. Sounds like it wouldn't help me much in government. . . . :-)
• snowwrestler 11y ago
  Congress has broad authority to make the law the way they see fit. A lot of what we think of as the "normal" way to pass laws, are just traditions and rules that Congress sets for itself. Those traditions and rules are good, which is why they exist in the first place. But they're not really binding or legally required. Which, if you think about it, makes sense. Congress is the ultimate lawmaking authority in the land--who is going to tell Congress what they can't do? The only answers are the Constitution and the voters. The Constitution sets some limits on powers, but doesn't micromanage process. And the voters tend to care about issues, not process. For CISA specifically, it had already passed both houses; adding it to the omnibus does not accomplish anything that was not already going to happen anyway. The text changes that tptacek details so thoroughly are the sorts of things that could easily happen in conference committee. Sticking it into the omnibus is mostly a matter of convenience at this point. In the end, Congressional leaders negotiated the omnibus, will allow it on the floor, and the full Congress will vote on it. This is the same bar than any piece of legislation must get over on its own. And there were nasty bills that did not make it into the omnibus, like de-funding Planned Parenthood.
  • abannin 11y ago
    There is a significant difference between bundling a bill into a high stakes omnibus such as the budget and passing it individually. It's much easier to stand up and say "I voted against a single bill" then "I voted against the budget and shut down the government". It's a strong arm negotiation tactic to force members to vote against their position on a less important issue. This is the same reason that so much pork gets thrown into the large bills.
  • joering2 11y ago
    I +1 you because it was educational to me, but I'm seriously asking: why you said "nasty" bills like de-funding PP ? edit: tpacek, Im not asking him in terms of his own opinion, but rather what "nasty" he found in those bills. His post was very informative that's why I asked. I couldn't care less what he thinks about the subject of PP.
    • tptacek 11y ago
• bsder 11y ago
  The "simple fix" is the line-item veto.
• the_watcher 11y ago
  Yes, that would be a simple fix. Unfortunately, this is such an effective way to sneak favors into bills (things like funding for a local initiative in the home district for a politician who voted for a previous bill) that lawmakers love it, so it's here to stay.