this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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My state has a rule restricting bills to one thing, and it seems to work pretty well.
Well I don’t know which state you mean but a lot of them are not divided the way then federal government is.
Sure, and mine is definitely not divided. But there have been contentious issues despite being predominantly one party.
I'd honestly rather a bill take much longer to pass than have a bunch of nonsense thrown in.
I think it’s a good method for achieving compromise. If the various factions perceive more benefit than cost, the bill passes. Obviously some bad things get snuck in, but you get good things out of it as well.
Even if your personal calculus is that this bill does more harm then good, I don’t think banning this method is a good idea.
I'd be okay with a Congressional rule that makes passage of one bill contingent on another bill to allow for compromise, but each bill should be tracked separately so it's transparent to voters what's being passed. There should also be a requirement that the title of the bill sufficiently describes the purchase of the bill.
That way we could still have bundles of bills, but the content of that bundle would be a lot more transparent. Seeing something like "Aid to Ukraine and Israel" also allowing the government to ban adversarial apps does not give constituents the appropriate information to contact their representative, and it's quite possible the representatives themselves haven't actually read the full bill if it's large (but might read relevant portions if they were broken up into reasonably-titled bills).
I could see that being an improvement, although it’s not terribly different from the current system. It might be clearer for the public to understand.
On the other hand, reps would have to explain to their constituents why they voted for the kicking puppies act which people might have trouble grasping.
And that's the important part. Right now, the rep can say, "oh, I didn't realize that was part of the bill, those sneaky Dems/Reps." But if they're all clearly named with individual votes, there's no hiding behind the "they snuck stuff into my bill" excuse.