United States House of Representatives: Pass H.R. 4335 (One Subject at a Time Act)

When a Bill can contain laws about multiple subjects, it becomes difficult for well-meaning Legislators to prevent controversial laws from sneaking into uncontroversial Bills. Laws that would never pass on their own succeed on the popularity of unrelated subjects. For example, a popular Education Bill can contain laws authorizing a gift of weapons to a foreign country.

To clearly and easily prevent "free rides" for bad laws, Congress should pass H.R. 4335, which allows only one subject per bill before Congress.

Passing H.R. 4335 will have positive side effects: normal citizens will be able to read and understand the law; plainly good laws will pass easily, unhindered by unrelated controversial laws; complicated legislation will receive focused debates and amendments; Legislators won't be able to sneak in pork-barrel legislation during private dealmaking; Legislators and citizens will be less confused about what laws a Bill actually affects.

Congress may argue that having to address each subject individually will slow down the lawmaking process, but this can be addressed with three arguments.

First, that Congress rarely passes legislation and then frequently only at the last minute – that procrastination can be attributed to the complexity of current legislation: who would want to pass something they can't finish reading, much less comprehend.

Second, while H.R. 4335 will result in more frequent votes, laws can be written and understood more rapidly, expediting the backlog by allowing simple votes to either pass a bill or get rid of it.

Third, while thorough debate and more frequent votes may slow down the creation of legislation, it's arguable that with the increasing complexity of Federal Law, slowing the proliferation of legislation is probably a win for the American people and their government.