Burying laws: congressional question.

Factual Questions
1

Forgive my ignorance but I only recently learned that they stick little laws in with big laws up there on Capital Hill. So if the title law gets passed, so do the little laws.
My question is: do these appended laws have to be related to the title law?

For instance, can a law or bill be passed that proposes, say…oh, to make some piece of land a national park in Nevada, and then have a little appendage law tucked in there that says…oh, to make it legal for the government to panty-raid any house in america?

If true, is this not very disturbing? It seems that very bureaucratic, clever, wordy things could be ‘snuck’ into any law. And with the administration we have now, that doubles the disturbing-factor.

2

The non-political answer is yes, any provision can be added to any bill. (There may be some technical exceptions). And yes, this has been used to put through provisions that would never have passed if they had to be voted on separately. This happens, oh, about a million times a year.

3

Many Governors have the power of the line item veto. That means that they can strike out certain provisions before signing a bill into law. The POTUS does not have that power so it’s all or nothing.

This sort of thing is used for vote brokering. Sign my law and I’ll add a provision to give your state a million or two to add another highway to nowhere.

Haj

4

In the House of Representatives, any amendments have to be germane to the main bill. A congressman can’t stick an amendment giving his state money for road construction of the main bill is about law enforcement.

On the other hand, amendments to Senate bills don’t have to be germane. A senator can attach whatever goodies he wants to. Some bills are so loaded with these goodies that they’re called “Christmas-tree bills”.

All in all, it’s been going on since there has been a Congress, so there’s no real reason to get worked up about it now.

Robin

5

Some/many of these amendments are winnowed out of the bill because the bill passing each house has to be identical. If each house passes differing versions then the bill goes to conference committee, which hammers out the differences and sends the revised bill back to the two houses for another vote. I believe the rules of each house specify that these bills are not subject to amendment but it’s been a long, long time since I looked into this with any level of detail.

6

I think you’re right that the harmonized bills from the conference cannot be amended by either Chamber according to House and Senate rules, although of course the bodies can suspend the rules in certain situations. Regardless, if a harmonized bill was sent to both Chambers and one of them amended it, then the two passed versions would not be identical and would therefore not be a law. (Until such time as these versions were again harmonized and passed by both Chambers in identical form.)

–Cliffy

7

Note, too, that some state constitutions contain restrictions that (purport to) prevent this sort of thing. For example, Missouri’s constitution requires that a bill must have the same purpose when passed that it had at introduction, and that it must have a single subject. Theoretically, that would eliminate christmas tree bills. In reality, it’s monumentally difficult to have a law invalidated on those grounds and the legislature routinely ignores the restriction.

8

The fact that it’s not a new problem isn’t a logical reason to dismiss it as a problem. Should we “grandfather” all problems that existed before a certain date and restrict our progress to strictly new problems?

The legislature passes bills including amendments which could not survive on their own merits. It’s an expedient way for the legislature to conduct their business, but that doesn’t necessarily make it good for the country. What we gain in legislative efficiency has to be balanced against what these special-interest amendments cost us.

9

Short answer: no.

Want a more technical answer? Okay, hold onto your hat.

There is no law or rule in Congress has outright prohibits what matter may be contained in any particular bill. As a result, one bill can deal with many subjects, or mostly one subject with a bit of something else thrown in there.

However, that does not mean that it is easy to do such things covertly, for several reasons.

One, both chambers of Congress have rules that make it tougher to sneak stuff into a bill. In the House, before a bill is brought to the Floor, the House must pass a “rule” that determines how long the debate will last, who controls the time, and what amendments may be offered. This prevents members from offering amendments that are off-topic, so to speak.

The Senate allows any amendment to be considered to any bill, with a couple of very narrow exceptions (ie, under cloture, a procedure used to stop a filibuster, an amendment must be “germane” to the bill. You don’t want to get any details on what germane means, believe me). However, there is a point of order against offering a legislative amendment (read: changing laws) on an appropriations bill (which provides funds). Also, if an amendment adds money to an appropriations bill so that the bill would bust the budget, it must get 60, not 51, votes in order to pass.

There are also rules on how bills can be reconciled in a conference committee. Suffice it to say that these rules make it harder to add extraneous material.

Two, although most senators and congressmen don’t read the legislation they vote on, there is a vast staff on Capitol Hill that does – not to mention the Administration, lobbyists, public interest groups, etc. If bogus stuff is in a bill, people will know about it. Its possible that some logrolling and horsetrading may keep that material in the bill, but it is pretty much impossible for someone to put something into law without anyone at least noticing it.

Three, the stage of the legislative process most conducive to adding unrelated matter is generally (but not exclusively) during the drafting or the committee markup of a bill. Note, that’s the earliest stages of the legislation, and many things get weeded out as the bill progresses.

The most concerning time for these things to be added is during conference on very large bills – it is very difficult to keep track of a bill with 300 provisions. Unfortunately, the partisan atmostphere in Congress over the last few years has meant an increase in these shennanigans – at least from my observations – followed by a bill being forced to a party-line vote without time to read its contents. It’s a bad way to operate a legislature.

So, once again: yes, it’s possible to add unrelated material; yes, it happens very often (but usually on small, technical matters); but no, it is not all that easy to “sneak” something past 535 members of Congress and a staff of 12,000 employees.

10

It is out of order in both houses to offer an amendment to a conference report (a harmonized bill). It cannot be done, unless the conference report is sent back to conference for some reason.

11

An appropriations rider is another little trick that Congress sometimes uses.

In addition to ordinary bills that say what the law is, Congress also passes appropriations bills which set the budget for various government activities. Sometimes Congress will bury items in the appropriations bills that make changes in the way the law functions. It can be very tough to find these buried changes.

12

Thanks everyone, especially Ravenman for his detailed answer.

I am paying more attention to these things in my middle age. I guess I’m glad I didn’t in the past because I would’ve become a crazed activist.
Now I just vote and write letters. Ho-hum…