[This rant is a result of a request in response to my rant meme by stuck_in_ma. He asked for a rant on “All of the bills in Congress with meaningless, unrelated riders tacked on, especially riders that kill the rest of the otherwise good bill.” Do you want a rant? Then reply to the rant meme… and follow the instructions and post it to your own journal. It is a wonderful creative writing exercise. ]
[He walks out, with a soapbox. He sets it on the ground. He climbs up on it, and speaks…]
In the musical “1776”, John Adams says, “I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a congress.” It was true in Adams’ time, and it true now. Nowhere is it seem better than in the notion of riders.
One of the purposes of congress, you see, is to prepare the laws and fund the government, approve those bills, and send them on to the President (who if things work as they should) usually sign them into law. But often, this process takes longer than it should due to something called a “rider”.
Now, you and I typically think of a rider as someone who sits with you in a vehicle that (unless it is a vanpool) typically doesn’t pay their own way. Riders in congress are similar — they are things added to the bill that are often unrelated to the law. They are typically added for two reasons: first, the author couldn’t get the rider passed on its own, so they attach it to the coattails of a “must pass” bill. Alternatively, they can be attached for a more nefarious purpose: to be so offensive that they will prevent the bills passage. Both cases are bad: they either torpedo a good bill, or they add unnecessary junk to a bad bill.
But that’s not all that congress (or your state assembly) does that is bad. We’ve all heard about earmarks: specific spending allowances that benefit only specific states or group. These are done both at the presidential and the congressional level. There’s also the gut and amend approach: legislators (especially state legislators, where there is a deadline on bill submission) take a bill that won’t pass, amend it to remove all the previous contents and introduce a new bill, and then send it back on. This hides the measure from monitoring scrutiny.
We need sunlight and transparancy on this. Amendments that do not actually amend, and are related to the legislation, should not be permitted — or if they are, it should be clear for all time who made the change. The same is true for specific earmarks. Gut and amend should not be permitted — it should be like remodeling — you have to keep at least one wall.
Demand this of your legislators when they ask for your vote. Riders must pay their way.
[He carefully climbs off the soapbox. He picks it up, and walks offstage.]
