Single Issue Legislation

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Just the other day I shared with sandwichwarrior a simple little requirement in our Washington State Constitution:

SECTION 19 BILL TO CONTAIN ONE SUBJECT. No bill shall embrace more than one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.

I've long felt that this should be adopted by the US as its next Constitutional Amendment. It has the simplicity to be enforced. The only people who might quibble about such requirements usually pack legislation with those famed riders, stuff that has nothing to do with the legislation being debated and which is often missed before passage, leading to what many call pork projects.

A set of general questions for consideration: Would you personally support such an amendment's passage? What ramifications, positive or negative, could you foresee that might endanger/quicken such passage?

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

It would change how logrolling and earmarking works, certainly. I mean, the negatives are that you'd vastly proliferate the actual number of votes that would need to be taken. I'm not sure how single-subject bills work in practice. Do they still allow for omnibus spending bills or the like?

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't the subject of an omnibus spending bill be "Budget for Fiscal Year XXXX"?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

That's it, yup.

Other than budget, though, multi-topic is a no-go, AFAIK.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

That's pretty broad, though. I mean, what's to stop me from putting a "Bill to Promote Virtue and Deter Vice," and put a billion different criminal laws under it? I just wonder how flexible the "single subject" is, is all.

[musicpsych.livejournal.com]

I was wondering that, too. Like, could two totally separate topics be united under one subject title.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Nope. There have been lawsuits in the past challenging laws based on both. Misleading titles for laws have been enough to strike the law, as have multiple topic legislation.

[koken23.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm wondering these things as well. How big is a 'single subject'?

Is 'Military Allocations' one single-subject bill, even though it covers funding for the VA, paying the troops, Tricare/healthcare, reasearch and development of new gear, possibly multiple campaigns which are unrelated...lots of different things.

What about stuff like federal funding for Planned Parenthood? Is that a single subject bill when it covers many more things than just abortion services - general healthcare for women and children, education in schools, counselling services?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

How big is a 'single subject'?

That's up to the court. 1999's Initiative 695 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Washington_initiatives_to_the_people#1999) is a good example. It limited car tab fees to $30, tried to strike down automotive excise taxes and require voter approval of future increases.

It was struck down as unconstitutional, even though it passed with a strong majority. The governor enacted the flat tab provision anyway given the strong approval.

I'm not sure how various services are funded. It's probably in the yearly omnibus, something Washington State also has.

[speciesofspaces.livejournal.com]

'one subject' is in the eye of the beholder. Revenue is one subject. Everything is revenue.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

At least you'd know what you were getting though. I don't think this would outlaw bills like "Big fat spending package bill" or "Variety of services bill" even, but it would make it so "Protect our national parks bill" doesn't have an addition of 20 million dollars for a grant to an oil company for drilling in Arkansas for instance.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

A justice bill may require budgetary concerns... but isn't budgetary in the least. I mean if Congress decided to legalize marijuana, or add add tobacco to the list prohibited narcotics, there are concerns that could be construed as revenue, budgetary or taxational. But you're being awful manipulative.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

And the beholder is the courts. Everything is not, though, revenue. There are protections and restrictions, legalizations and condemnations. The revenue bills are just getting a bunch of coverage these days, pushing the other congressional passages to the back pages of the papers that still bother to print.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I always thought voting on two separate issues with one vote was odd. I understand that horse trading is a necessity in democracies, but those things should go on as discussions beforehand.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

The federal bills American Congress/Senate votes on all seem to be omnibus bills. Commenters above have taken issue with the defining (definition of) a single issue/subject. Anal legalese types may debate what should be apparent and obvious, but they do have a point. Manipulation of good intentions is not that common, but common enough, so prevention ought to be addressed.

But isn't this why the Senate exists? To review bills that congress passes and if they find a bill breaches single subject then they send the bill back down to congress, citing which part(s) should be removed or have split up into separate bills. Maybe I'm wrong because I don't completely understand the American system, but here our Senate mandate is to review bills that pass Parliament before they are signed into law.

Because the US Senate is incompetent (and corrupted by Wall Street) perhaps their job should be simplified. Let's define a taxation bill as a bill that involves taxation. And a justice bill as one that serves justice. Etc, etc.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Our Senate has no such mandate to review, no. They're just another House of Congress, with the same responsibilities as the House of Representatives, but slightly less power because they can't introduce some bills, but have to get them from the HoR.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

But the House already has a single subject rule. All amendments must be germane to the original bill - so the entire point of this exercise is to limit the Senate.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

That's a rule of the House, though, and can be revised or eliminated by the House. Besides, no one enforces it, because nobody can enforce anything in Congress's own rules against Congress. In states with constitutional single-subject rules, the rule is enforced by the state courts, which allow citizens to bring challenges against the law as unconstitutionally passed if they oppose it on that basis.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

Well, that is what elections are for, or bullets if we are going the non-majoritarian way, piddling with the rules is piddling with the rules.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

The federal bills American Congress/Senate votes on all seem to be omnibus bills.

Only the ones that make the news. The two houses pass an enormous load of bills in their regular business that only make the news in the Federal Registry and maybe C-SPAN. Our crap-tastic media focuses instead on whether candidates where flag pins or who's banging whom.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I think it would be nice if things like Unemployment Insurance extensions could be passed without having pipelines and gutting EPA regulations attached to them like a form of blackmail.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

You've hit the nail on the head.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

It would be nice to have an amendment like that, but I think it would slow down the legislative process further because you'd have people trying to pass individual legislation for pork spending instead of taking on more pressing issues.

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think that this might cut down on pork spending a little bit.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Is this neccesarily a bad thing?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Pork spending almost necessarily requires rider attachment to big bills of importance for passage. If the actual pork were debated, er, whole hog, no one would pass the bill.

Single subject is a great way to cut pork. Very little shows up in laws here at the State level.

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it would be nice. I do like the idea of making legislation more transparent.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Transparent is one thing, but accountable is the desired result.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

This is pointless if you don't include legislation to speed up the legislative process. As it is a lot of bills don't even come up for a vote.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Most of the important ones come to votes. I've wondered how many were "delayed" not by a full agenda, but as a speed bump thrown in front of the bill by strategically minded congresspersons.

And in one very real way this would speed legislation, since debate would take place on only, again, one legislative proposal. I imagine debate over attached riders occupies quite a bit of yakking time on the floor.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Well you also have to define what a 'single issue' is. If you're trying to overhaul a system then it wouldn't make sense to handle it on a issue-by-issue basis, since the system requires completeness in order to run. Both dismantling it and creating a new system would be horrendous.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Well you also have to define what a 'single issue' is.

Actually, no I don't. As noted above, the courts decide if legislation falls into the single issue definition. If someone suspects a law may violate that provision, they take it to the judge.

And I don't feel this is an "overhaul." More like a fine-tuning. About the only disruption one can expect would be a raft of riders attached to just about everything in the months before the amendment takes effect. After that, no riders, and congress works more in DC as it does in the other Washington, capital Olympia.

Things do work here.