6 ms·

I find the way American law-making is done to be fascinating. As far as I can tell the US is the only country on Earth where politicians are able to "bundle" co

I find the way American law-making is done to be fascinating. As far as I can tell the US is the only country on Earth where politicians are able to "bundle" completely unrelated things into a single piece of legislation. It definitely doesn't happen here in the UK in any substantial way (laws get amendments added on but they're always at least somewhat related to the main part), and I've never heard of it anywhere else in the world. It's a truly interesting thing to read about from a negotiation perspective, but it must make the process of actually getting things done in politics really hard.

TeaDude 5y ago
I don't think I've seen any omnibus bills in the UK but there's still a lot of nasty euphemisms. Not sure if there's a legal system that DOESN'T use nasty euphemisms though...
davidvondev 5y ago
It's one of the things that's going to change. The current lack of transparency is extremely damaging to faith in government. Each part of a the law should require an actual author(s) the same way a patent requires an actual inventor, irrespective of who it was ultimately assigned to. Also, aggregate omnibus laws like this one have to be expressly forbidden, for just the reasons you cited. That's the absolute minimum level of reform necessary.
joconde 5y ago
I think it happens in France sometimes, and it’s one of the roles of the Constitutional Council to strike unrelated measures from laws.
- bonzini 5y ago
  Same in Italy, though here it's a parliamentary democracy so it's the president of the republic that does this kind of oversight.
- bambax 5y ago
  Yes, it's called "cavalier législatif" ("law rider"?) and it's kind of forbidden by the 45th article of the current constitution, which states that an amendment is examined if it has a "link, even indirectly, with the piece of legislation being voted". That doesn't prevent it from happening all the time, of course. The Conseil Constitutionnel sometimes strikes the "riders" if the law being voted is referred to the Council -- but referral isn't mandatory. https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/publications/titre-vii/le-controle-des-cavaliers-legislatifs-entre-continuite-et-innovations https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/publications/titre-vi... [in French]
- flipbrad 5y ago
  In the UK, the principle is that a law's "Long Title" must cover everything in that law - which limits the ability to shoehorn unrelated amendments in during the draft law's passage through Parliament. Long titles sometimes are made vague, deliberately, to provide for some flexibility here. https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/long-title-of-a-bill/?id=32625 https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/long-tit...
thayne 5y ago
> but it must make the process of actually getting things done in politics really hard Yes and no. If what you want to get done is sneak something in under the radar, or force the other party to approve one piece of legislation they wouldn't normally approve, in order to pass some other legislation they want more, then it can make it easier to get things done. Unfortunately, those things are often driven by special interests and not what is best for the general population.
pomian 5y ago
This happens in Canada also. Bills are bundled with all sorts of new legislation, but the title of the bill usually refers to just one. The title is also very often given a politically favorable 'save the children ' jingo, disguising the true meaning of the functionality of the legislation.
malauxyeux 5y ago
It's not the normal way of doing things, but omnibus bills show up in Canada from time to time. Other countries aren't immune either. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_bill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_bill The bills are designed to make the politics easier, at least for the Canadian bills I've read about. The complexity makes the bills difficult to understand and scrutinize. This makes them nearly impossible to cover in a parliamentary debate and makes it impossible to inform the public about their implications, even in broad strokes. The lack of context makes the interpretation of the ensuing laws more difficult. At least, that's what I've absorbed from reading up on the issue when it's come up in Canada.
wiredearp 5y ago
With all this filibustering and owning going on, I imagine that it might actually serve the purpose of promoting legislation that both parties agree upon but which one or both can't openly advance for fear of serving the opponent a perceived win. But maybe I'm overthinking it.
OneTimePetes 5y ago
Lots of EU-countrys have "Late night sessions" in parliament, were one party representatives listen to EU-Legislature being read and voted into national law. The whole parliamentary process there is a farce, with the voting members often being asleep while the law is being read.
- bob332 5y ago
  The EU is a farce
- peytoncasper 5y ago
  It seems highly likely that either a voting members staff or themselves have likely pre-read the bill in advance and as such know which way they are voting. As a result, it seems like late night sessions are more about show that anything else?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thewhitetulip 5y ago
Since 2014 this is the norm for Indian govt to pass unrelated bills as part of "money bill" as an easy way to pass bills by bypassing the upper house because the govt didn't have majority in the upper house And these days debates just don't happen on bills. Since they have super majority they do whatever they want. People who cry tears of blood against the govt still don't elect opposition members in Parliament who could stop unfavorable bills and then they cry (sorry fir the reddit-esque sentence) "OmG OpPoSiTion Is UseLesS"
1cvmask 5y ago
It is malice through obscurity. On a side note there is over 2.5 billion allocated to tree equity. No one has figured out what that really means.
- oogali 5y ago
  I can probably tell you what it doesn’t mean: no thought will be given to the high number of US communities whose tree population is being decimated by invasive species and are unable to eradicate [let alone control] said species. So to effect the tree equity program as described, not only would you need to plant a high number of trees in areas that historically did not have them (or could not support them), you have to account for the routine inspection, community outreach programs (“if you see this insect, say something”), infection treatment, and in advanced cases, destruction of infected trees which warrants additional resources for a shade tree commission in these communities where such commission (nor budget) may not have existed. https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2019/Q3/invasive-pests-kill-so-many-trees-each-year,-its-equal-to-5-million-car-emissions.html https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2019/Q3/invasive-pe... https://extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly https://extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/invertebrates/emerald-ash-borer https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/invertebrate...
- api 5y ago
  Tree NFTs?
  - bombcar 5y ago
    NFTrees
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  eh, it's like "give money to the programs that plant trees in the poor neighborhoods" except obviously you can't say words like "poor" because that might be mean and dismissive so you start rewriting things to be more about the unfairness of the whole situation until it's the usual impenetrable jargon
- 5y ago
jaclaz 5y ago
It happens for sure in Italy, usually toward the end of the year there is the so called "finanziaria" (which essentially sets up - or should set up - the estimation of expenses for next year), where often completely unrelated things are added. The "twist" is that an article there is likely to be formulated (hypothetical) more as something like: on the third paragraph of article #x of Law #y of dd/mm/yyyy the sentence "the provision in the preceding art.x is intended to be ..." is replaced with the sentence "the provision in the preceding art.x, as modified by the #nth paragraph of Law #w, article #z, of dd/mm/yyyy is due to be ..." Which makes it totally not understandable until you also have handy Law #y and Law #z and even then, there are probably another two or threee references to other Laws.
- Aerroon 5y ago
  Wouldn't it be fun if voters would have the ability to ask members of parliament questions about the contents of a bill before it's voted on? Kind of like a mandatory reading test in school. If they're voting on it, they will know the contents of the bill, right?
  - whywhywhywhy 5y ago
    They're already open an honest about how they don't actually read them.
    - Aerroon 5y ago
      And it's understandable that they don't read them - some of these bills are so enormous that it isn't possible for an individual to read all of it in time. But that's not OK. It needs to change.
rnhmjoj 5y ago
> As far as I can tell the US is the only country on Earth where politicians are able to "bundle" completely unrelated things into a single piece of legislation. I wish it was: this is basically routine in Italy. As an example, last month the government issued a decree, informally referred to as "capienze" (capacities), that regulates the amount of people allowed into cinemas and theatres. Sounds innocuous, right? Unfortunately it also contains an article that significantly reduced the powers of the Garante della Privacy (the italian privacy watchdog). And this is not limited to the government, the parliament also loves to sneaks unrelated and controverial stuff into ordinary laws. This usually happens early in the summer or late friday evenings, when most MP are absent.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  And the European Commission tried to push software patents through at a meeting between farming ministers... It happens everywhere.
PinguTS 5y ago
You seems to forget that within the EU the Committee on Fisheries decided for the EU has whole to sign the ACTA treaty. You know copyright, IP rights, and a such is highly related to fishery. Or not?
michaelt 5y ago
I have a theory that America's bizarre process is a result of their "checks and balances". The US system has the senate, congress, presidency, and a bunch of committees - all of which can impede the others' work, and all of which can be under the control of a different party. And every person who can block your bill is someone who can extract a concession. You want your bill to pass, and for a mere extra 0.3% pork you'll have my enthusiastic support.... With the result they get thousand-page bills, and a country dotted with more dams and bridges than they can afford to maintain.
- peytoncasper 5y ago
  While you’re not wrong about what is typically referred to as negotiation. I won’t speak about countries I know nothing about, but favors always get called back. So maybe it’s not written in bills, but it exists. As for checks and balances. Typically that refers to the Executive branch (Presidency and agencies), Legislative (House and Senate which have committees), and Judicial. I’m not sure how this would be any different under a parliamentary system where you still have to work with various groups to form a coalition with enough votes?
  - Armisael16 5y ago
    In the US system you can have split control - one party has the house and the other the senate (or the presidency - you need a trifecta). If you don’t have all three then basically nothing gets done. This can’t happen in a parliamentary system. There’s only one body, and elections are automatically called if no one can establish a majority coalition. Someone has to have a majority in parliament, and there isn’t any other body to contend with. Parliamentary systems can almost always conduct business is hyperpolarized conditions; the US system almost never can.
    - peytoncasper 5y ago
      This is just not true. In fact, this very article and thread talk about how various laws are added to a bill to garner support from people on various sides. In fact you can actually see that the rate of legislation has been steadily increasing over the years. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics I won't make a statement about parliamentary systems, but believe it or not, the US system doesn't grind to a halt when the President's party is not in power, because the President doesn't just magically veto everything like a child might.
api 5y ago
In America we pass giant snot balls and let the courts sort it out later. Of course we are now well into the age of hyper partisan court packing so that may no longer work.
specialist 5y ago
Yup. What Francis Fukiyama calls the "vetocracy". The entire stack of US policy work, legislation, lawmaking has many, many veto points. For better or worse. The functional purpose of the US Senate is to prevent legislation. "Congress is where good bills go to die." -- legislative aide, personal friend One consequence is strong tendancy for big bang (punctuated equilibrium) over incrementalism. A recurring scenario is that once a coalition has a veto-proof supermajority, they bum rush as much legislation as possible, before the next mid-term election dissolves the coalition. That's why progressives and reformers have always advocated for majority rule. Another consequence of vetocracy is empowering the executive. Explaining why the rise of executive orders. Alas, many are happy with the status quo, gridlock, dysfunction. My brother, for instance. Who believes that any day spent legislating is a crime against humanity. What reactionaries like my brother don't grasp is someone will fill the power vacuum, continue to make decisions. Where legislators are impotent, the admins, commissions, lobbyists, executives, judges happily make their own laws and govern without any accountability. The neoreactionaries (monarchists), like Peter Theil, explicitly prefer the Aristolian philosophy king model. Because people (the polis) are stupid, only natural leaders who are benign dictators would rule, and so forth.
- davidvondev 5y ago
  >Where legislators are impotent, the admins, commissions, lobbyists, executives, judges happily make their own laws and govern without any accountability. None of those make law. The unaccountable non-elected entity which does make actual literal law that is enforced, at the end of the day, with arrest fines and jailing is the administrative state, here the DOT. Not passing laws gives the administrative state less to feed on. What we need is a decent user interface to government and the legislative process. One sufficient to enable the average person to generate an informed opinion on proposed legislation. That seems pretty basic. Monarchists like Theil never say what happens after the original, "good" Monarch is gone. History tells us things go downhill fast.
spamtarget 5y ago
Unfortunately this is not only american (cries in hungarian)

TeaDude 5y ago

I don't think I've seen any omnibus bills in the UK but there's still a lot of nasty euphemisms. Not sure if there's a legal system that DOESN'T use nasty euphemisms though...

davidvondev 5y ago

It's one of the things that's going to change. The current lack of transparency is extremely damaging to faith in government. Each part of a the law should require an actual author(s) the same way a patent requires an actual inventor, irrespective of who it was ultimately assigned to. Also, aggregate omnibus laws like this one have to be expressly forbidden, for just the reasons you cited. That's the absolute minimum level of reform necessary.

joconde 5y ago

I think it happens in France sometimes, and it’s one of the roles of the Constitutional Council to strike unrelated measures from laws.

bonzini 5y ago
Same in Italy, though here it's a parliamentary democracy so it's the president of the republic that does this kind of oversight.
bambax 5y ago
Yes, it's called "cavalier législatif" ("law rider"?) and it's kind of forbidden by the 45th article of the current constitution, which states that an amendment is examined if it has a "link, even indirectly, with the piece of legislation being voted". That doesn't prevent it from happening all the time, of course. The Conseil Constitutionnel sometimes strikes the "riders" if the law being voted is referred to the Council -- but referral isn't mandatory. https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/publications/titre-vii/le-controle-des-cavaliers-legislatifs-entre-continuite-et-innovations https://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/publications/titre-vi... [in French]
flipbrad 5y ago
In the UK, the principle is that a law's "Long Title" must cover everything in that law - which limits the ability to shoehorn unrelated amendments in during the draft law's passage through Parliament. Long titles sometimes are made vague, deliberately, to provide for some flexibility here. https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/long-title-of-a-bill/?id=32625 https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/long-tit...

thayne 5y ago

> but it must make the process of actually getting things done in politics really hard Yes and no. If what you want to get done is sneak something in under the radar, or force the other party to approve one piece of legislation they wouldn't normally approve, in order to pass some other legislation they want more, then it can make it easier to get things done. Unfortunately, those things are often driven by special interests and not what is best for the general population.

pomian 5y ago

This happens in Canada also. Bills are bundled with all sorts of new legislation, but the title of the bill usually refers to just one. The title is also very often given a politically favorable 'save the children ' jingo, disguising the true meaning of the functionality of the legislation.

malauxyeux 5y ago

It's not the normal way of doing things, but omnibus bills show up in Canada from time to time. Other countries aren't immune either. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_bill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_bill The bills are designed to make the politics easier, at least for the Canadian bills I've read about. The complexity makes the bills difficult to understand and scrutinize. This makes them nearly impossible to cover in a parliamentary debate and makes it impossible to inform the public about their implications, even in broad strokes. The lack of context makes the interpretation of the ensuing laws more difficult. At least, that's what I've absorbed from reading up on the issue when it's come up in Canada.

wiredearp 5y ago

With all this filibustering and owning going on, I imagine that it might actually serve the purpose of promoting legislation that both parties agree upon but which one or both can't openly advance for fear of serving the opponent a perceived win. But maybe I'm overthinking it.

OneTimePetes 5y ago

Lots of EU-countrys have "Late night sessions" in parliament, were one party representatives listen to EU-Legislature being read and voted into national law. The whole parliamentary process there is a farce, with the voting members often being asleep while the law is being read.

bob332 5y ago
The EU is a farce
peytoncasper 5y ago
It seems highly likely that either a voting members staff or themselves have likely pre-read the bill in advance and as such know which way they are voting. As a result, it seems like late night sessions are more about show that anything else?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

thewhitetulip 5y ago

Since 2014 this is the norm for Indian govt to pass unrelated bills as part of "money bill" as an easy way to pass bills by bypassing the upper house because the govt didn't have majority in the upper house And these days debates just don't happen on bills. Since they have super majority they do whatever they want. People who cry tears of blood against the govt still don't elect opposition members in Parliament who could stop unfavorable bills and then they cry (sorry fir the reddit-esque sentence) "OmG OpPoSiTion Is UseLesS"

1cvmask 5y ago

It is malice through obscurity. On a side note there is over 2.5 billion allocated to tree equity. No one has figured out what that really means.

oogali 5y ago
I can probably tell you what it doesn’t mean: no thought will be given to the high number of US communities whose tree population is being decimated by invasive species and are unable to eradicate [let alone control] said species. So to effect the tree equity program as described, not only would you need to plant a high number of trees in areas that historically did not have them (or could not support them), you have to account for the routine inspection, community outreach programs (“if you see this insect, say something”), infection treatment, and in advanced cases, destruction of infected trees which warrants additional resources for a shade tree commission in these communities where such commission (nor budget) may not have existed. https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2019/Q3/invasive-pests-kill-so-many-trees-each-year,-its-equal-to-5-million-car-emissions.html https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2019/Q3/invasive-pe... https://extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly https://extension.psu.edu/spotted-lanternfly https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/invertebrates/emerald-ash-borer https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/invertebrate...
api 5y ago
Tree NFTs?
- bombcar 5y ago
  NFTrees
fennecfoxen 5y ago
eh, it's like "give money to the programs that plant trees in the poor neighborhoods" except obviously you can't say words like "poor" because that might be mean and dismissive so you start rewriting things to be more about the unfairness of the whole situation until it's the usual impenetrable jargon
5y ago

jaclaz 5y ago

It happens for sure in Italy, usually toward the end of the year there is the so called "finanziaria" (which essentially sets up - or should set up - the estimation of expenses for next year), where often completely unrelated things are added. The "twist" is that an article there is likely to be formulated (hypothetical) more as something like: on the third paragraph of article #x of Law #y of dd/mm/yyyy the sentence "the provision in the preceding art.x is intended to be ..." is replaced with the sentence "the provision in the preceding art.x, as modified by the #nth paragraph of Law #w, article #z, of dd/mm/yyyy is due to be ..." Which makes it totally not understandable until you also have handy Law #y and Law #z and even then, there are probably another two or threee references to other Laws.

Aerroon 5y ago
Wouldn't it be fun if voters would have the ability to ask members of parliament questions about the contents of a bill before it's voted on? Kind of like a mandatory reading test in school. If they're voting on it, they will know the contents of the bill, right?
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  They're already open an honest about how they don't actually read them.
  - Aerroon 5y ago
    And it's understandable that they don't read them - some of these bills are so enormous that it isn't possible for an individual to read all of it in time. But that's not OK. It needs to change.

rnhmjoj 5y ago

> As far as I can tell the US is the only country on Earth where politicians are able to "bundle" completely unrelated things into a single piece of legislation. I wish it was: this is basically routine in Italy. As an example, last month the government issued a decree, informally referred to as "capienze" (capacities), that regulates the amount of people allowed into cinemas and theatres. Sounds innocuous, right? Unfortunately it also contains an article that significantly reduced the powers of the Garante della Privacy (the italian privacy watchdog). And this is not limited to the government, the parliament also loves to sneaks unrelated and controverial stuff into ordinary laws. This usually happens early in the summer or late friday evenings, when most MP are absent.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
And the European Commission tried to push software patents through at a meeting between farming ministers... It happens everywhere.

PinguTS 5y ago

You seems to forget that within the EU the Committee on Fisheries decided for the EU has whole to sign the ACTA treaty. You know copyright, IP rights, and a such is highly related to fishery. Or not?

michaelt 5y ago

I have a theory that America's bizarre process is a result of their "checks and balances". The US system has the senate, congress, presidency, and a bunch of committees - all of which can impede the others' work, and all of which can be under the control of a different party. And every person who can block your bill is someone who can extract a concession. You want your bill to pass, and for a mere extra 0.3% pork you'll have my enthusiastic support.... With the result they get thousand-page bills, and a country dotted with more dams and bridges than they can afford to maintain.

peytoncasper 5y ago
While you’re not wrong about what is typically referred to as negotiation. I won’t speak about countries I know nothing about, but favors always get called back. So maybe it’s not written in bills, but it exists. As for checks and balances. Typically that refers to the Executive branch (Presidency and agencies), Legislative (House and Senate which have committees), and Judicial. I’m not sure how this would be any different under a parliamentary system where you still have to work with various groups to form a coalition with enough votes?
- Armisael16 5y ago
  In the US system you can have split control - one party has the house and the other the senate (or the presidency - you need a trifecta). If you don’t have all three then basically nothing gets done. This can’t happen in a parliamentary system. There’s only one body, and elections are automatically called if no one can establish a majority coalition. Someone has to have a majority in parliament, and there isn’t any other body to contend with. Parliamentary systems can almost always conduct business is hyperpolarized conditions; the US system almost never can.
  - peytoncasper 5y ago
    This is just not true. In fact, this very article and thread talk about how various laws are added to a bill to garner support from people on various sides. In fact you can actually see that the rate of legislation has been steadily increasing over the years. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/statistics I won't make a statement about parliamentary systems, but believe it or not, the US system doesn't grind to a halt when the President's party is not in power, because the President doesn't just magically veto everything like a child might.

api 5y ago

In America we pass giant snot balls and let the courts sort it out later. Of course we are now well into the age of hyper partisan court packing so that may no longer work.

specialist 5y ago

Yup. What Francis Fukiyama calls the "vetocracy". The entire stack of US policy work, legislation, lawmaking has many, many veto points. For better or worse. The functional purpose of the US Senate is to prevent legislation. "Congress is where good bills go to die." -- legislative aide, personal friend One consequence is strong tendancy for big bang (punctuated equilibrium) over incrementalism. A recurring scenario is that once a coalition has a veto-proof supermajority, they bum rush as much legislation as possible, before the next mid-term election dissolves the coalition. That's why progressives and reformers have always advocated for majority rule. Another consequence of vetocracy is empowering the executive. Explaining why the rise of executive orders. Alas, many are happy with the status quo, gridlock, dysfunction. My brother, for instance. Who believes that any day spent legislating is a crime against humanity. What reactionaries like my brother don't grasp is someone will fill the power vacuum, continue to make decisions. Where legislators are impotent, the admins, commissions, lobbyists, executives, judges happily make their own laws and govern without any accountability. The neoreactionaries (monarchists), like Peter Theil, explicitly prefer the Aristolian philosophy king model. Because people (the polis) are stupid, only natural leaders who are benign dictators would rule, and so forth.

davidvondev 5y ago
>Where legislators are impotent, the admins, commissions, lobbyists, executives, judges happily make their own laws and govern without any accountability. None of those make law. The unaccountable non-elected entity which does make actual literal law that is enforced, at the end of the day, with arrest fines and jailing is the administrative state, here the DOT. Not passing laws gives the administrative state less to feed on. What we need is a decent user interface to government and the legislative process. One sufficient to enable the average person to generate an informed opinion on proposed legislation. That seems pretty basic. Monarchists like Theil never say what happens after the original, "good" Monarch is gone. History tells us things go downhill fast.

spamtarget 5y ago

Unfortunately this is not only american (cries in hungarian)