Rider (legislation)
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. They 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. Use of riders is customary in many legislative bodies, including the
Congress of the United States.
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.
The practical consequence of this custom is a limitation of the veto power of the
executive: because the veto is an all-or-nothing power, the executive must either accept the riders or strike down the entire bill. In the United States, the
Line Item Veto Act of 1996, a law struck down by the
United States Supreme Court as
unconstitutional in
Clinton v. City of New York, allowed the
President to veto single objectionable items, without affecting the main purpose of bills.
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. However, legislators often work around this limitation 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 are generally unconstitutional. Upon apellate
constitutional courts will closely evaluate the full body of the law as well as the title. Should they determine that certains "ingredients of the
salad" have no connection or significance to the bulk of the law, those provisions will be annuled (in serious cases with retroactive effect).
In 2005, the
Hungarian Constitual Court 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 judical ruling restricted the government's future options in bypassing due parlamentary debate and imposing certain reforms unilaterally.
Examples:
*
Real ID Act*
Omnibus
