The title says it all. Can you write a bill in such a way that those who vote against it will not benefit from it if it should pass anyway?
I mean if they’re welcoming the money in the sense that they’re using it to improve infrastructure… Thats kinda their job, even if they voted against that allowance of funds. What are they gonna do, be given a budget to improve infrastructure and then just not do anything with it…? If theyre using it innapropriately obviously thats an issue, and personally I disagree with their choice to vote against the bill, but like… Obviously if it passes and the money is given to them to improimprove infrastructure then they should use that money for its purpose? There’s a fine line between making sure people aren’t credited with policies that they opposed, and just being vindictive and making our political system even more like a bunch of petty children…
Maybe I’m missing something, I dunno. I’d be curious to hear other perspectives.
Yes, nothing is stopping them. Though it would likely get challenged in the courts, on a wide variety of grounds to choose from, I imagine.
I don’t think we should though, I think we should simply take the opportunity to use it as political ammunition and then let it go. Helps maintain a shred of civility, perhaps.
They definitely should not write bills in such a way that the opposition is excluded from its benefits. That’s a real bad precedent. Imagine a security situation where blue states are forsaken by the military.
I believe Trump even mused about something like this, which is how you know it’s unethical.
I’m not seeing the issue here. It did pass. Politicians aren’t normally the type to take a moral high ground in issues. If there’s money available for your state, you should take it.
Firstly, a law shouldn’t need to be written so black-and-white. A pretty famous example is how the EU uses targeted sanctions/tariffs to impact the opposition. Like when the Trump admin was threatening a trade war with Europe, the EU responded by threatening new tariffs on specific US products. Said tariffs would hurt trade goods from Republican states more often than not.
So the EU didn’t just come out and say, “we’re going to punish the Republican admin by targeting Republican states”. But that’s what they did effectively. Here’s a NYC article that covers the situation. To quote the relevant line:
A provisional list of items being targeted ranges from steel to T-shirts, also including bed linen, chewing tobacco, cranberries and orange juice, among other products.
^ That’s all stuff that typically comes more from Republican states.
What I’m getting at is the way a bill is written can hurt the opposition, without needing to spell it out “If you don’t vote yes you lose” style. Spelling it out would just cost unnecessary political capital.
As far as the broader concept of writing laws that hurt the opposition, I would just use it as a tactical consideration. Maybe using the threat of a less favorable bill could get the opposition to compromise faster. But it’s absolutely a tactic that can backfire, and there are policies that I should hope we never use such tactics with. Like, in the context of the US, imagine only giving public healthcare to states that supported it. That would be terrible. Last I checked, Texas is the state with the 2nd most Democrats in the country. So tons of people who would want that healthcare, and would have voted for it, wouldn’t be receiving it.
And for what? Out of some kind of desire for revenge or some feeling of fairness? That’s not going to go down well in the long run. Any governing party should be trying to better the entire country. If this kind of tactic was used too much, then you risk galvanizing the opposition and pissing off Independents. Which is a surefire way to lose next election season.
