Instead of simply passing this good, sound policy, leadership looks for ways to use the policy to make their opponents look bad.

Attach an unrelated amendment the opposition dislikes, and the opposition is forced to choose between voting for something they feel is bad policy and voting against the underlying, popular legislation.

Years ago, some creative member of Congress came up with this idea and called it a rider.  A rider is an unrelated – and usually controversial – amendment attached to a piece of legislation.  The rider often wouldn’t have enough support to pass as a stand-alone measure, so party leadership attaches it to a popular piece of legislation in an effort to force passage.  The problem with riders is that they often hold a good piece of legislation hostage just so that party leadership will have something to argue about.

The perfect example is the Supplemental Appropriations bill that Congress voted on Thursday, June 5.  The Supplemental Appropriations Bill is a spending bill to make up for any emergencies or unexpected expenses that Congress didn’t budget for last year.  This year, the Supplemental Appropriations bill will fund relief for the victims of the devastating floods in the Midwest and additional funding for U.S. soldiers keeping peace in Bosnia.

Everyone agrees that we must help the flood victims with disaster relief funds.  Furthermore, even people who don’t support the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia believe that since we do have U.S. soldiers there, we should support them with food, travel expenses and other basic necessities.  The Supplemental Appropriations bill should have passed with an overwhelming majority weeks ago.  

Then Congressional leadership decided to attach riders to the Supplemental Appropriations bill.  These riders include language to limit the way we conduct our U.S. Census, a measure to allow roads in national parks to be paved, and a measure to lock in last year’s spending levels should Congress fail to reach a budget agreement.

I do not believe these issues should be part of the Supplemental Appropriations Bill.  First of all, they are unrelated to the purpose of the bill, which is to fund emergency projects like U.S. soldiers in Bosnia and flood victim relief.  Second, these measures are very controversial and Congress should have the opportunity to vote on them individually.

Most important, attaching these riders holds the underlying bill – and subsequently the flood victims and U.S. soldiers in Bosnia – hostage.

Supporters of the riders think that they can jam these controversial measures through Congress and the White House.  Presidents don’t like to be blackmailed and everyone knew that President Clinton would not sign this Supplemental Appropriations Bill.  He vetoed it and flood victims are left to wait an wonder if their money will ever come.

This is what the public dislikes most about Congress.  This is why few pay attention to what Congress is doing, and why few trust Congress to keep its work.  I want to help restore people’s trust in their democratic government and I become very frustrated when I see my colleagues playing these games.

Speaker Newt Gingrich and the rest of the Republican leadership in Congress deserve the blame this time.  They attached these riders and held up the important process of sending emergency funds to people in need.  Don’t get me wrong, before I was elected, the Democrats in charge did the same thing.  The public, frustrated with partisan bickering and political games, threw them out in 1994.

Congress needs to realize that it must start doing things differently.  If we are ever going to tackle big problems like reforming Medicare and Social Security, we must stop this unnecessary partisan bickering.

After all, if the public sees that we can’t work together to fund relief for flood victims, how will they ever trust us enough to reform Medicare and Social Security?