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Senators can attach anything to any bill
The germane rule
The House calls the requirement germane: an amendment has to relate to the bill at hand. The Senate has no germane rule, so a senator can propose any amendment on any topic whatsoever to a bill.
How riders travel
A senator who cannot get their own bill to the floor, because it lacks support, can find someone on a committee to attach what they want as a rider to a different, totally irrelevant bill.
Jon Stewart testified before a House committee on the 9/11 first responders' bill and laid out this path. A bill gets stuck inside a transportation or appropriations bill and sent to the Senate, where a senator can turn it into a political football for something of their own, such as an import tax on petroleum.
Why does the Senate have no germaneness rule?
The Senate's tradition favors open debate and strong rights for individual members, and its 100 members have not needed the House's tight control of the floor. Germaneness does apply in some situations, though. After cloture is invoked, amendments must be germane, and the Byrd rule polices extraneous provisions in budget reconciliation bills. The Byrd rule is named for Robert Byrd, the senator from West Virginia who championed it.
How do riders travel on must-pass bills?
Bills such as annual spending measures must pass to keep the government funded, so they attract riders. A president who objects to a rider has to veto the whole bill, along with the funding. In 1998 the Supreme Court ruled in Clinton v. City of New York that the line-item veto, which would have let the president strike individual items, was unconstitutional. The ruling came two years after Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act.
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