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Comment by djoldman | Hacker News Reader

A slightly adjacent question:

Why is it that at many levels of US government, there aren't more and smaller bills?

It seems like bills on solar energy end up getting smushed together with bills on police spending. Two or more almost totally unrelated issues.

The naive answer is that two unrelated issues in one bill allows for direct compromise: you vote for my thing and I vote for your thing. Also, usually the majority party gets to bring a vote to the floor so they have the power.

But an advantage to the single issue bills is that you'd get your opponents on record voting against stuff that may be popular, if it's truly what the people want.

You'd also get to pass a ton of items that would make for great PR bites. They might be small in effect but great talking points.

As majority leader, you can force everyone to vote yea or nay, I wonder why they don't use it more often.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_bill

> Many legislatures may have a tradition of extensive deliberation and debate prior to the adoption of laws, which can postpone passage of necessary legislation. Thus, in order to pass all desired laws within a reasonable timeframe, they are consolidated into a single bill and voted on quickly, typically near the end of a legislative session.

> Because of their large size and scope, omnibus bills limit opportunities for debate and scrutiny on the actual final bill. Historically, omnibus bills have sometimes been used to pass controversial amendments. For this reason, some consider omnibus bills to be anti-democratic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider_(legislation)

> In legislative procedure, a rider is an additional provision added to a bill or other measure under consideration by a legislature, which may or may not have much, if any, connection with the subject matter of the bill.

In general, this is the "wheeling and dealing" and "quid-pro-quo" and "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" of creating new laws.

The sponsor of the bill starts with a clean, straightforward version of their solar bill...but they don't have enough votes. So they start adding in causes from other legislators who want to pass other things (crime, etc.).

This is known as pork barrel legislation

> This is known as pork barrel legislation

It’s also known as democracy. To my knowledge, it’s how every independent elected legislature works. (For obvious reasons. You’re trading votes and not every constituency gives a shit about the same issues.)

> You’re trading votes and not every constituency gives a shit about the same issues.

But this is precisely how democracy fails. You have a bill that nobody wants except a special interest group in e.g. Pennsylvania. It can't pass on its own because it's not worth the candle -- Pennsylvania wouldn't even pass it themselves at the state level. But if the federal representative from Pennsylvania can get that bill funded with federal money then they get reelected in Pennsylvania. And likewise for some other bad bills from Florida and Virginia and Arkansas.

But then instead of all those bills failing as they deserve to, they get combined together and all pass, because the constituents in any given district are paying more attention to whether their boondoggle gets passed than whether their representative can prevent some other one.

> Pennsylvania wouldn't even pass it themselves at the state level. But if the federal representative from Pennsylvania can get that bill funded with federal money then they get reelected in Pennsylvania

This is an article about the Pennsylvania legislature.

> instead of all those bills failing as they deserve to, they get combined together and all pass, because the constituents in any given district are paying more attention to whether their boondoggle gets passed

Yea. If something has concentrated approval and no concentrated opposition, it passes. That’s democracy. You seem to be criticising rushed legislation more than omnibussing.

> This is an article about the Pennsylvania legislature.

This is an article about the Pennsylvania legislature wrangling over federal funding. And the principle is generic, and the same dynamic applies to districts within a state and state legislatures. If a bill can't pass on its own, why should it pass?

> If something has concentrated approval and no concentrated opposition, it passes. That’s democracy.

That's the opposite of democracy. If 2% of the population is strongly in favor of something and 98% of the population is weakly opposed and you put it up for a vote, it fails. Which it's supposed to, because "take a pile of money from 98% of people and give it to 2% of people with political connections" is a bad bill.

> You seem to be criticising rushed legislation more than omnibussing.

What does being rushed have to do with it? The perverse incentives (horse trading otherwise-unpassable bills for each other; disguising votes for bad legislation as "we had to vote for the omnibus") created by omnibussing are the same regardless of how long you take to deliberate.

> If 2% of the population is strongly in favor of something and 98% of the population is weakly opposed and you put it up for a vote, it fails

Sure. More common: 2% is strongly in favour and 98% don’t care.

> What does being rushed have to do with it?

You described to what “ the constituents in any given district are paying more attention.” That’s a function of focus and time.

> More common: 2% is strongly in favour and 98% don’t care.

"Don't care" is the focus and time thing. Given adequate consideration, anyone would have at least a weak preference for any given policy choice.

> You described to what “ the constituents in any given district are paying more attention.” That’s a function of focus and time.

It's a function of focus and time on the part of the electorate. Legislators can take more time to do something by simply delaying action until the question can be thoroughly debated. Voters, by contrast, don't control the legislative schedule and have a finite amount of time, so if more legislation is created than they have time to consider it, having the voters consider the issue more carefully before passing the bill is the thing where you can't pass the bill until the bill by itself has the support of the majority of the population.

> sponsor of the bill starts with a clean, straightforward version of their solar bill...but they don't have enough votes. So they start adding in causes from other legislators who want to pass other things

It’s also necessary for a legislature representing diverse interests. California, Louisiana, Texas and New York will care about a ports bill. You know who doesn’t? South Dakota and Wyoming. (We don’t export or import much by sea.) But both care deeply about federal lands. So a natural compromise bill is one that tackles both ports and federal lands. Add the rest of the fifty states and the fact that republics going back to Rome featured omnibussing isn’t a surprise.

Dakota and Wyoming export a very large fraction of their agricultural products by sea.

> Dakota and Wyoming export a very large fraction of their agricultural products by sea

Few hundred million dollars for Wyoming, and most of that goes to Canada [1]. It’s not an issue of political salience in the state.

[1] https://ustr.gov/map/state-benefits/wy

Because you don't want the other side (political party) to do the same thing. The US congress has relatively recent rules designed to actually prevent this from happening, and rather keep everything in reconciliation bills. Which obviously is a great way to hobble our legislative branch. But that's the point, no one wants the other side to try their hand at being a normal legislature. Which is part of why you end up with courts (and now the executive) wielding more power, because congress is effectively weaker and less nimble/responsive than it should be.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_%28United_State...>

Spending on grants and spending on police is both spending. And in general you want to at least mostly balance budget. So doing all the spending at one time is the sensible move. You can do tax changes as well to get whole picture.

It is more responsible than just spend, spend, spend and spend in smaller patches of the year.

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