15. How Line Item Legislation Works

.... Line Item Legislation is a proposed voting procedure for Congress, made possible through advances in software technology and a new technical distinction in the rules. Under the new ruling, bills would be subdivided into line-item form, making each item an individual, line-item ‘bill’ in itself. This distinction would remain, even if these ‘bills’ were grouped together in a larger package.
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.... Next would begin a preparation period of about a week. During this time, legislators would use the line-item approach to vote for the items they supported and against those they opposed. As an option, comments could be added (in a background record) to explain their voting decisions. When the official vote is called for, majority returns would be tallied through computer processing.

.... This procedure would more clearly define each legislator’s political views for increased accountability to their constituents, and would foster greater fiscal responsibility as a result. Wasteful spending, including earmarks, would perish in the glare of attention.
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.... The same forum would promote the political careers of worthy politicians based on fair recognition of their foresight, wisdom and integrity.

.... After each house passed their own version of the legislation, it would proceed to a conference committee, where committee members would be bound by another new ruling called ‘Realistic Parameters’. This means they must work within the framework of the material that was handed to them. These items are their only 'bargaining chips' with the other house, and they may not attach additional riders or earmarks of their own.
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.... As the House and Senate versions are reconciled, compromise legislation would be created and returned to each house for another round of voting. Two voting procedures would then be available, as determined in advance by the conference committee. These are the Legislative or the Executive options:

.... 1. Under the Legislative option, the legislation would become a single bill and would be voted as such in both houses, as at present. If approved, it would proceed to the president in the same form.
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.... 2. Under the Executive option, legislation would remain in the form of line-item bills, though each house would vote on it as a 'package', similar to a fast-track approach. The president, however, would make use of that distinction in his own review, achieving a defacto Line-item veto. Technically, this would be a standard veto of line-item bills, so there should be no constitutional conflict.

.. The second option would be used only rarely, in forcing a confrontation with the president to make him define his political views, as in the budget debate of 1995.

.... Line Item Legislation is an approach our founding fathers would have envisioned if computer power had been available in their day. It makes each politician more accountable to the people and better defines their political stands. It creates a new balance of powers within each house, yet produce no shift in the broader balance of powers between the branches. This makes it far more effective overall than a Line-item Veto would have been.
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.... Furthermore, these new rules would apply to Congress rather than the presidency, so they could be adopted by a simple majority in each house (U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 5, Clause 2). Since a Constitutional amendment would not be required, this is a realistic, obtainable and flexible goal.
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.... To read more of this introduction, please click HERE. To learn about Line Item Legislation in depth, Please click HERE.