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In legislative practice, a rider is an additional provision annexed to a bill under the consideration of a legislative assembly, having little connection with the subject-matter of the bill. They are usually without enough specific merit in themselves to insure their adoption in any other way. Sometimes riders are attached to important bills, in order to gain the chance of passage, since by themselves they are likely to incur an executive veto, but as a part or proviso of an important bill they are absorbed in the main subject, and so dodge the "veto" and the "table". Appropriation bills are more than others "saddled with riders". The consequence of this custom is, practically, a limitation of the veto power of the executive. It has been proposed frequently that the Constitution of the United States be so amended that the President could veto single objectionable items, without affecting the main purpose of bills.
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