logrolling

A practice common in the U.S. Congress and in many other legislative assemblies in which two (or more) legislators agree for each to trade his vote on one bill he cares little about in exchange for the other's vote on a bill that is personally much more important to him. Logrolling is especially common when the legislators are relatively free of control by their national party leaders and are trying to secure votes for bills that will concentrate sizable benefits on their own home districts while spreading most of the costs out over taxpayers in the rest of the country. Local projects such as Federally funded dams, bridges, highways, housing projects, VA hospitals, job-training centers, military bases and the like are often pushed through by logrolling. [See also: pork-barrel legislation , appropriation bill , authorization boll ]