When Spending Bills Start Legislating, Self-Government Breaks Down
For Single-Subject, Against Logrolling
One of the quiet revolutions in modern governance isn’t driven by ideology so much as legislative procedure. The site of American policymaking has shifted: major policy changes increasingly appear not as stand-alone statutes debated on the merits, but as riders tucked inside sprawling appropriations bills. “Must-pass” budget legislation has become the place where real law is made.
This procedural shift enables something very old in politics but newly supercharged by scale: logrolling; trading votes by bundling unrelated measures together. Members who would never support a controversial policy on its own will support it when it is packaged with something their district depends on, while others do the same in reverse. The practice takes on a different character when the vehicle is a thousand-page spending bill that must pass to keep the government open. At that point, logrolling doesn’t merely smooth legislative compromise; it begins to replace open legislative argument altogether.
This evolution matters because there is an intellectual lineage from Madisonian republicanism through the modern constitutional political economy that understands what law is, how it should be made, and why the process matters for self-government.
A Contemporary Case: Section 453 in H.R. 4754
Consider a contemporary example: in the House’s version of the FY2026 Interior and Environment appropriations bill (H.R. 4754), Section 453 prohibits funds from being used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “issue or adopt any guidance or any policy, take any regulatory action, or approve any labeling (or change to such labeling)” that is inconsistent with certain human health assessments already conducted under existing law.
Critics argue that this could constrain the EPA’s ability to update pesticide warnings in response to emerging science unless a new formal assessment is completed — a process that can take years. Supporters respond that it promotes regulatory consistency. Whichever view one takes of the substantive policy, the key constitutional point remains the same: this is a significant policy rule embedded inside an appropriations bill. It is precisely the kind of provision that survives politically not by persuasion, but by being packaged inside a must-pass spending measure.
Why Process Is Substance
Political economists such as James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock warned that bundling policy riders into appropriations turns logrolling from a tool of compromise into a substitute for deliberation. When substantive policy is hidden inside must-pass budgets, accountability blurs. Members vote “yes” or “no” on vast packages rather than on the discrete questions they contain, and the public loses any clear view of who supported which policy and why.
Voters and civil society are likewise left with what economists call fiscal illusion. No ordinary citizen, and often no legislator, can meaningfully grasp the full content of a thousand-page appropriations bill presented shortly before a vote. In that environment, the real work of lawmaking occurs in private negotiations among a small number of actors, while formal democratic procedures continue largely as ritual.
Constitutional and Republican Foundations
American constitutional design has long contained tools meant to resist exactly this pattern. Many state constitutions include single-subject rules, requiring bills to address only one topic and mandating that amendments be germane. The intuition is straightforward: lawmaking should be intelligible and consentable.
A related safeguard is the traditional distinction between authorization and appropriation. First the legislature decides what government may do; only afterward does it decide how much to fund those authorized activities. When appropriations bills become the primary vehicles for substantive policy, that sequence collapses and legislative responsibility blurs.
In the case of Section 453, what would normally have been addressed as a discrete regulatory reform is instead embedded in a large spending measure. The issue is not merely the policy outcome, but the method by which it is enacted.
Procedural Reform Is Not Merely Technical
Reforming this pattern would not guarantee any particular substantive result. It would do something more important: return public controversy to public view. It would require legislators to argue for policies on their merits rather than rely on packaging.
A healthier legislative order would:
Restore and enforce single-subject rules for major spending and regulatory bills
Separate authorization from appropriations, debating each on its merits
Limit unrelated riders and policy provisions in appropriations bills
Provide real time for review before votes on large measures
In a constitutional republic, process is the architecture of self-government. When that architecture is weakened or distorted, the capacity of citizens to understand, consent to, and govern through the laws they live under erodes with it.