Originally Posted by RawAlex

It is one of the biggest problems of the so called democracy of the US... in order to get bills past, they often tack on unrelated issues to get people to vote for it. In this case, they take a bill that cannot help but get passed, and tack on a totally unrelated piece of legislation/

Why does this work? It's the shame factor. Nobody is going to vote against a "ports security" bill, nobody is going to want to look like they are weak on homeland security or against supporting the troops or anything like that (hey, the flip flop on troop support did John Kerry in by itself!). So they tack on unpopular extremely partisan riders on the side, and when the bill gets passed, those other riders come right along with it.

THis is one of the reasons why there was such a big fight about presidential line-item vetos, which would allow the president to not only veto an entire bill, but veto certain parts of it, typically these tacks ons and pork projects.

I hope that the democrats take this legislation and jam it down the republican's throats in November... Frist is an asshole above and beyond the call of duty.

Alex