Washington Insider: Congressional Earmarks Reconsidered

The Hill is reporting an unusual development in Congress – with Democrats back in control of the House, The Hill reports “strong support” for reviving Congressional earmarks, the power to direct money for pet projects. “Earmarking” had fallen into disfavor in earlier administrations and has been widely considered to be a corrupt practice. Still, The Hill claims that Senate and House lawmakers from both parties predict there will be a serious push to bring back earmarks once the government shutdown is finally over — with at least one difference. They likely will have a new name – “congressionally directed spending.” Support for bringing back earmarks is not unanimous, but is growing as both parties work to counter the shift of power to the presidency. “When you discontinue earmarks, you’re saying the administration can better spend the money in my district. They know best what we need,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. He said it is “not just some, it is the majority” in the House Democratic Caucus that back ending the earmark ban. “Based on what I’m hearing, on the other side, they too believe it was a mistake to discontinue earmarks,” he said of his GOP colleagues. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., a longtime ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also said, “It’s definitely worth a review. I know that I was always proud to have press conferences and press releases on all the things I did,” she said. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is one of the most outspoken proponents for bringing back earmarks and has discussed it with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other colleagues. Congressional earmarks reached their peak in the middle of Bush’s administration, when the fiscal 2005 defense spending bill included 2,506 earmarks worth $9 billion and the energy and water development bill included 2,313 earmarks worth $4.9 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. The proliferation of earmarks fueled the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and led to the downfall of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., who was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to directing federal spending after receiving bribes from lobbyists. The explosion in earmarks prompted a backlash that helped Democrats win control of the House in 2006, The Hill said. Yet the practice continued under then-President Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress and the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending package included 9,000 earmarks totaling $5 billion. The practice was ended in 2010, after Republicans took control of the House in the Tea Party revolution and then-Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, imposed a ban. Obama declared in his January 2011 State of the Union that “if a bill comes to my desk with earmarks in it, I will veto it. I will veto it.” But the ensuing six years of Obama’s presidency was one of the most legislatively unproductive stretches in recent years, marked by stalemates over what had previously been considered routine business, such as raising the nation’s debt limit and funding the government. Opponents such as Boehner and the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who died last year, are no longer in Congress to fight the return of earmarks. Other senior Republicans such as Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby of Alabama, and Senate Rules Committee Chairman Roy Blunt of Missouri, have voiced support for allowing Congress to earmark funds again. They think that if individual members of Congress have more power to direct federal resources back to their home states and districts, they are more likely to agree to bipartisan compromises and pass bills. A spokeswoman for Shelby noted that the rules package passed by the new House Democratic majority did not include a prohibition on congressionally directed spending. “I think it’s not coincidental that the appropriations system and other legislative [process] dramatically deteriorated in their ability to produce a result at the same time that the Congress stopped directing the administration as to how money should be spent,” said Blunt, who also chairs the Senate Republican Policy Committee. One of the strongest proponents of earmarks is House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who like Pelosi served as a member of the House Appropriations Committee. Hoyer says earmarks or congressionally directed spending should be allowed, albeit with reforms to make it tougher to secure shady deals for lobbyists or lawmakers’ personal gain, he told The Hill. Hoyer noted that when Democrats controlled the House from 2007 to 2010, they adopted reforms included prohibitions on funding for-profit entities, requiring members to certify that they had no financial interest in their requests and ensuring that members post all of their requests along with a justification for each project on their congressional websites,” he said. The practice has strong political appeal, but also has been misused in the past and would require strong oversight to avoid repeats of former embarrassments, Washington Insider believes.