Should Congress be allowed to hijack bills?

Great Debates
1

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article1780952.ece

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Congress does it again. This is where the congress truly fails the people in our system of government. We elect members of congress to trust that they will carry out the will of the people, and trust them to not commit fraud. While legally they get away with hijacking bills, IMO, it is a form of fraud.

Congress should not have the ability to tack on laws at the last second of bill approval. In fact, each bill should be one issue, and one issue only. Tacking on anti-gaming laws on a security bill is sneaky and deceptive.

While were on the subject, why aren’t bills seperated on an issue by issue basis? Why is congress allowed to decieve the American public by adding pork to bills? I’m no expert on bill creation>to law, but shouldn’t the people limit what congress can, and cannot do when creating a bill? That’s right, we can’t, because they would control the bill that would tell them how to handle bills. They would just tack on ‘Void’ in small print at the end.

2

I’m with you, 100%. And I’m reminded of a story I read in “Lies and the Lying Liers Who Tell Them.”

NOTE: I don’t have the book in front of me, so I made up the particulars.

Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone (D-Mn) once voted (along with something like 80% of the Senate) in favor of a bill to increase funding for VA hospitals*. Then, while running for reelection, his opponent ran ads that said, “Paul Wellstone is a frivolous spender. He voted to spend 1.5 million dollars to protect the yellow-spotted birch tree* even though that money could have gone to (insert some other cause here).” Of course, that provision was a rider in the larger bill. And if he’d voted against it, the ad would say “Paul Wellstone hates our troops.” Congress’s ability to do this is what’s worst about American government and runs contrary to everything we’re taught as children that the United States stands for. It sickens me.

  • I made up the specifics since I can’t remember them.
3

This just reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Springfield was in danger of being leveled by a meteor. They show a scene in congress as they’re about to vote on the evacuation of Springfield when one senator stands up and says “Wait a second, I want to tack on a rider to that bill - $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.” They immediately take the vote and everyone says nay.

4

This is one of the few things that was wrong in the original Constitution/plan for government.

There should’ve been a Constitutional clause that stated that every item in a bill had to directly relate to the title of the bill.

Of course, it could still be fixed if Congressmen and women were decent people who took their civic duties seriously and simply refused to vote for bills with rider. But they’re not. If they did that - then their personal pork riders would go down with it. I listened to CSPAN during the debate of this bill (my job, you see, was just made illegal on a last-minute rider attachment) and while people strongly objected to adding that unrelated subject, they voted for it anyway.

The problem is, if you voted against the “Port Security Act” on the basis of objecting to the riders, people in this political climate would say “Representative so and so voted to let Osama ride a nuclear boat into our ports while stomping kittens just to be extra evil!!”

Each issue should be evaluated on its own merits, not snuck in at the last minute to a bill that has the political pressure to pass. And getting rid of this would get id of hidden pork to some extent, too.

It will never, ever happen, because governments never cede any power they’re ever given (which is one reason why they should never be granted drastic “temporary” powers). But it’s certainly the right thing to do.

5

Pork is certainly not a rider, no matter how you define it. Pork is Congress directly stipulating how a certain amount of an agency’s budget will be spent. This happens in the appropriations bill that funds that agency. So regardless of your like of riders or not, pork would be unaffected by any proposal to eliminate them.

6

Is that just the technical definition of the word pork?

I mean, if there’s a bill, say, about regulating public water quality, and it tacks on a clause about corporate welfare to oil companies - that’s pork, right?

7

I don’t know if there is a technical definition. Pork is not a government word. In general, though, I think when people are talking about pork barrel spending they mean using earmarks to deliver federal money to a certain state or district.

I see how it could be called that. But what do you mean by “corporate welfare”? Targeted tax breaks? Direct approriations to certain companies? General government programs that go to benefit an industry? Tax breaks for companies aren’t generally placed on unrelated bills. In fact, these tax breaks are almost always included in bills specifically relating to taxes. For direct corporate welfare such as money given to a specific company, that is relatively rare but if it happens it happens in general spending bills. And for the funding of government programs that benefit certain industries, that also happens in general spending bills.

It’s not like Congress passes a bill to criminalize child porn and at the same time throws in a tax break for oil companies. What it does is pass a tax bill that, say, cuts the capital gains tax, provides tax credits for teachers who buy students’ supplies, and then it throws in a variety of targeted tax credits or deductions for certain industries. In general, tax bills and spending bills do not deal with only one tax cut or one government agency. They cover a variety of tax cuts and agencies. In that variety, pork pops up.

8

I asked the same question a few months ago.

9

Let me give you a better example.

A representative promises to bring in jobs and money to his district. So we take that same water standards bill and on page 275 we tack on appropriations for a big construction project for an expensive bridge that isn’t really needed in his district just to be able to bring jobs there.

I get the impression, based on things I’ve read, that stuff like this isn’t uncommon.

10

Well, it actually never happens. Earmarks of this sort are only contained in appropriations bills. Sometimes earmarks are contained in authorizing bills – such as the Bridge to Nowhere, which was in a transportation authorizing bill – but there are never appropriations just stuck into general bills like one for water standards or whatever.

11

Yes, I meant riders, not pork. I didn’t really know that hijacks were called “riders”. But in any sense, somebody in Congress and B&R casinos is getting PAID. Someone who shouldn’t be is getting a kick back as a result, should Bush sign this bill.

12

B&M casinos, not B&R.

13

I’ll bite - Congress should have the power to attach riders, even when they are (arguably) irrelevant to the purpose of the bill, and would be unlikely to pass on their own merits. This is because:

1.) Who decides what’s relevant? McCain’s amendment to ban torture was attached to a defense funding bill - there’s a strong argument to be made that it wasn’t at all relevant. The funding bill was intended to support policy, not to steer it (in theory, anyway). McCain’s amendment was a dramatic policy change, not at all in keeping with the overall purpose of the bill. This brings me to my next point,

2.) Sometimes, we need irrelevant riders. On issues where lobbying groups (or the White House) would otherwise be able to bring enough pressure to bear to kill a stand-alone measure, attaching it to a bill which must pass can give it a fighting chance. As in the case of McCain’s amendment, this can be a remarkably good thing. It isn’t so clearly the case with the gambling bill - but if you believe that gambling is a serious and crippling social problem, then this rider is a godsend. It wouldn’t have passed on its own, but now that it has, we’re one step closer to solving this problem.

Now, personally, I strongly disagree with this legislation, and I’m not at all convinced that online gambling is even a problem that has to be solved. But this brings me to point three:

3.) The system can correct itself. There are a lot of very smart, very attentive people watching everything congress does. This online gambling measure was introduced at the last minute, but it wasn’t “sneaked” in - legislation doesn’t sneak. There are a lot of people who oppose it, and they’re speaking out very loudly about it. Now it’s in the public’s court. If this legislation is so contrary to the popular will that voters get outraged, Congress will feel the heat and repeal it. On the other hand, the voters might actually think this is a decent policy - in which case, no harm, no foul.

Caveat: There is, of course, the problem of riders which are only mildly unpleasant - that is, no one outside a small interest group actually wants them, but they don’t hurt the rest of us, and so they slip through. I would argue, however, that this is a fair price to pay for the legislature’s ability to quickly pass controversial legislation while shielded from special interests.

(Additional caveat: I’m not sure I actually believe any of this - but you wanted a debate, a debate you’ve got.)

14

I thought it was pandering to the right wing kooks before November than financially motivated.

15

No one is getting a kickback because this bill passed. That’s a ridiculous assertion that has no proof to back it up. I know it’s common knowledge that all Congressmen live high on the hog because of various bribes they take to pass legislation, but that perception is totally untrue. Legislation is not passed because of bribes. Some Congressmen and Senators truly believe in this legislation and a lot of Americans do, too (sure, not on the SDMB, but they are out there).

16

Never? Never ever?

17

One, the legislation in question in the Cunningham case was not major legislation like the gambling bill but instead earmarks and other small provisions of bills.

Two, a bribe to a single Congressman does not translate into the entire Congress voting for the bill.

Three, occasionally some Congressmen are crooked (Cunningham, Torricelli, Ney, et. al.) but they are found out and prosecuted. Bribery is not common on Capitol Hill, no matter what the public impression may be.

18

There’s more to this than B&M casinos getting over. There’s also the question of tax revenue. This was done for the same reason that Internet cigarette sales were shut down: the companies are out of reach of the Federal government, so the government can’t get their cut.

The government would be falling all over itself to let you gamble online if they could ensure that they would get the tax dollars out of it. But because they can’t tax a company in Russia (or wherever) that has no physical presence in the United States they are choosing to ban that company from doing any sort of business here.

19

Gambling bill? There was no gambling bill. There was a port security bill, with an anti-gambling provision tacked on.

You don’t need to bribe all the congressmen, just enough to make a difference. any more is a waste of money.

Always? Mostly? Or just sometimes?

Bribery is much more common that the average person believes.

20

No, there was originally a bill dealing specifically with gambling. That bill received a lot of media attention over the past few months. That bill was then attached to another bill and both were passed.

So you only need to bribe a majority, then? Interesting. Please provide proof that a majority of Congressmen were bribed in order to pass this bill or any other.

I’d say almost always. It’s not easy to bribe someone. Senators and Congressmen must file financial disclosure statements and as soon as someone starts living beyond his means (like Cunningham), red flags go up.

Please provide proof of this incredible statement. I can say, from personal experience, that this is completely, 100% untrue. I worked on Capitol Hill and I worked around Capitol Hill, and there was never any hint of any sort of bribery that I ever saw. There was always the impression that the Trafficants and the Torricellis were crooked, and they were found out to be so. They give elected officials a bad name, but they are extremely rare.

There is a general impression that Congress is crooked and on the take. This is the result of lazy reporting that prefers to blame differences of opinion on base motives and an ignorant public that laps up this type of reporting without critically thinking about it.