Rider (legislation)

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In legislative practice, a rider is an additional provision annexed to a bill under the consideration of a legislature, having little connection with the subject matter of the bill.^{[citation needed]} Riders are usually created as a tactic to pass a controversial provision which would not pass as its own bill. Occasionally, a controversial provision is attached to a bill not to be passed itself but to prevent the bill from being passed (in which case it is called a wrecking amendment or poison pill).

1 United States
2 Canada
3 Europe
4 Examples
5 See also

United States

The use of riders is prevalent and customary in the Congress of the United States, as there are no legal or other limitations on their use.

Riders are most effective when attached to an important bill, such as an appropriation bill, because to veto or postpone such a bill could delay funding to governmental programs, causing serious problems.

When the veto is an all-or-nothing power as it is in the United States Constitution, the executive must either accept the riders or reject the entire bill. The practical consequence of the custom of using riders is to constrain the veto power of the executive.

To counteract riders, forty-three of the fifty U.S. state constitutions allow the use of line item vetos so that the executive can veto single objectionable items within a bill, without affecting the main purpose or effectiveness of the bill. In addition, the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 was passed to allow the President of the United States to veto single objectionable items within bills passed by Congress, but the law was struck down by the United States Supreme Court as unconstitutional in Clinton v. City of New York.

Canada

In Canada, because of the rigid system of party control both in the federal Parliament and in provincial legislatures, the use of riders is rare. Furthermore, Canadian convention prohibits anyone other than a Minister from proposing a bill or an amendment to a bill that would require the government to spend money ("money bill").

Europe

In some legislative systems, such as the British Parliament, riders are prevented by the existence of a long title of a bill which describes the full purpose of the bill. Any part of the bill which falls outside the scope of the long title would not be permitted. Legislators often work around this limitation, however, by naming a bill vaguely, such as by appending "and for connected purposes" to the name.

In 2005, the Constitutional Court of Hungary struck down the yearly national budget law in its entirety, because almost half of the paragraphs were not related to state fiscals at all, but modified 44 other existing pieces of legislation, which concerned health regulations, public education and foreign relations. This judicial ruling restricted the government's future options in bypassing due parliamentary debate and imposing certain reforms unilaterally.

Rider (legislation)

Contents

United States

Canada

Europe

Examples

See also