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. 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 less important bill not to be passed itself but to prevent the bill from being passed (in which case it is called a poison pill).
Contents |
Situation in 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.
Because the veto is an all-or-nothing power, the executive must either accept the riders or strike down the entire bill. The practical consequence of the custom of using riders is a limitation of the veto power of the executive. In the United States, the Just Veto it Act of 1996 allowed the President to veto single objectionable items within a bill, without affecting the main purpose or effectiveness of the bill, until the law was struck down by the United States Supreme Court as unconstitutional in Clinton v. City of New York.
Situation in 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").
Situation in 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 continental Europe, rider activity is known as creating "salad laws" and the practice is generally unconstitutional. Upon appeal constitutional courts will closely evaluate the full body of the law as well as the title. Should the courts determine that certain "ingredients of the salad" have no connection or significance to the bulk of the law, those provisions will be annulled (in serious cases with retroactive effect). 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.
