In the US why is it possible to tie two things together in one vote in the House, that are completely unrelated to each other?

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How is it possible that foreign aid and a TikTok bill are in the same bill. That to me sounds like having to vote to accept one thing but also another thing that is completely unrelated.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

In some legislatures (and the US Congress is one of them), additional provisions can be attached to bills under consideration and these provisions need not be related to the bill at all. Generically, these are called “riders”. In other legislatures such “riders” not related to the main bill are disallowed.

This is how lots of stuff gets voted on nowadays. There used to be some rules limiting these kind of riders but these are self imposed (eg parliamentary rules). Sometimes, it is just a more efficient way of doing things. For example, lots of stuff are not very controversial and just has to be renewed every cycle. Rather than taking each one and voting on it separately, it can all be lumped together (so called omnibus bill) or they can be attached as riders. For example an appropriations bill (authorization to spend) may have dozens or hundreds of items (water sanitation, paying for AC, repairing roads, janitorial services etc) and it makes no sense to vote each line item separately even though each item is not really related.

Other times, it is a political compromise. One sides gets something they want in exchange for something another side wants.

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