The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-05-07

A Bill To Kill Bills.

this means q waste Of valuable
time. especially II il occurs at the
close of . session.
The rider has always been more
or less of q joke. Now it threat.
ems to become very practical and
far-reaching joke. The Repubh-
cans have not yet put through the
budget bill, but they did agree TO
have all appropriations handled
by a single appropriations commit
tee. This does away with the old
system whereby appropriations for
the army were put into Legislative
form by the committee on military
affairs. Indian appropriations went
to the committee on Indian affairs.
Now, these various committees
Graft only such legislation as does
not involve appropriating Of funds.
This takes away much OF their
power and gives q great deal of
power to the one committee hand
ling finance-how much. can be
seen from the estimate that three
fourths of the time Of congress is
spent on appropriation bills.
Committee Rule.
Theoretically, this new arrange
lnent should leave the purely leg
islative committees big chance to
promote constructive legislation.
They can count on only one-fourth
Of congress time. however, and
such important matters as immi-
grafton. railroads and taxation re-
quire so much attention that small
er bills are apt to go through an
entire session without hearing.
In this situation. Representative
in the use of riders. Members of
the legislative committees, finding
it impossible to get their bills
through. will wear a path in the
marble floors Of the capitol to the
door Of the rules committee. This
body. like the appropriations COM
mittee, will rise in power. With it
will rest the decision as to whether
this piece of legislation or that is
worthy of a place in an appropria-
ton bill. and its decisions will fix
the minor laws that are often so
far-reaching in effect.
Thus. says Mr.. Tinkham. the
committee on rules will have a de-
gree OF authority not consciously
given to it by congress. and to the
disadvantage to the rest of the
members.
That the use OF the rider is I'M
desirable is proved by the fact that
there is a rule against it. 1t is an
old abuse. one that has existed
throughout our legislative history.
Originally, the practice OF adding
irrelevant matter to financial bills
arose in England The house Of
commons held The right to make
appropriations. 1t occurred to
some member that the king must
have the money to run the govern
ment affairs. and therefore a bill
carrying money was a safe place
for certain measures desired by
the commons but unpopular with
the king. The scheme worked. so
well that it became regular track
n the legislative game.
THE present rule has been far
from satisfactory in dealing with
the rider" Mr.. Tinkham explained.
The rule can be amended, how
ever, so that misuse Of riders will
be minimized. The bill / have in
iroduced into the house is an
amendment to the rule and pro-
yides that a favorable -two-thirds
vote of the house Of representa-
tives be necessary in order TO at
tach rider to an appropriation
bill. Once in great while it might
be desirable to put piece OF leg
islation through In this way, and
this amendment makes it still pos
sible Any bill that cannot get the
support of two-thirds Of the house
certainly should not be railroaded
through under any circumstances.
Mr.. Tinkham is practicing his
own theory. He says he will not
make a rider out of his bill.