The earmark, banished by House Republicans in 2011, could be making a comeback.
A GOP lawmaker is proposing a change in the House rules next year that would revive congressional line-item spending, known as earmarks, but only for water resource development projects of the Army Corps of Engineers.
Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., called his proposal “a toe in the water” for restoring direct funding authority to House lawmakers that was eliminated nearly six years ago under now-retired House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Rooney’s idea received bipartisan praise from members of the House Rules Committee at a recent hearing on proposed changes for the 115th session of Congress, which begins in January.
And his pitch to the Rules panel provoked a discussion about the downside of the earmark ban, which more and more House members are beginning to lament because, they say, it takes the power of the purse away from individual lawmakers and hands it over entirely to the executive branch.
“I find your idea thought-provoking and engaging,” Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, said while chairing the hearing.
New York Rep. Louise Slaughter, who is the ranking Democrat on the Rules panel, told Rooney, “I wish to goodness that would happen,” in response to the proposal.
Republicans implemented the earmark ban in response to criticism that lawmakers were exploiting the process to sneak into law billions of dollars in pork barrel projects, some of it of questionable or little value. Earmarks were also used to help win votes on key legislation and were frequently slipped into legislation in the dead of night by individual lawmakers without consensus, only to be discovered after a bill had become law.
One of the most notorious was the $223 million “bridge to nowhere” earmark that lawmakers first tried to pass in a federal funding bill in 2005. The huge sum was designated for a bridge in a remote area of Alaska that would have served 50 residents.
The money was never appropriated, but it became a symbol of wasteful and deceptive spending tactics in Congress. Over the next six years, earmarks were increasingly targeted by taxpayer watchdog groups until Boehner, a staunch earmark foe, banned the practice when he became House speaker in 2011.
But lawmakers are increasingly frustrated that they have thrown away a vital constituent service because they can no longer designate federal money where it is needed at the district level.
“It always perplexed me as to why we would want unelected government bureaucrats making decisions about how we spend money in our districts rather than people who were elected by the people of the United States,” said Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., a member of the Rules panel.
Rooney’s proposal could be considered by House GOP lawmakers in January as part of an overall rules package the House will consider on the opening day of the 115th session.
If the Rules committee does not include it among its proposed changes, Rooney could offer it as an amendment when GOP lawmakers vote on the rules package before bringing it to the House floor for a vote.
Rooney told the Rules committee he singled out the Army Corps for the earmark revival because the agency cannot seek federal grants and is completely dependent on the executive branch to decide where money should be spent, with no input from lawmakers about the needs in their districts.
“There is no recourse for us, other than to write the administration a letter, begging them,” Rooney said. “And they can tell us to take a hike if they want to and they do that a lot. Especially in my district.”
Despite Rooney’s argument, lawmakers are likely to be wary of reviving earmarks, even on a limited basis.
Many were in Congress when Boehner, in 2007, argued the GOP lost the majority in part because they failed to ban the earmark and the public trust in Congress had been undermined.
The GOP, Boehner argued, “had gotten the message the hard way,” that the public was fed up with earmarks.
House Resources Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, a seven-term lawmaker, said earmarks became so tarnished prior to the 2011 ban, they could not return without major reforms to at least bring more transparency to the process.
“If you are going to bring them back, either gradually or full force, you’ve got to rewrite the rules on how they are done,” Bishop said, “so that the abuses of the past will not be replicated.”
Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, remains a staunch opponent of earmarks, which he said allowed money to be directed toward projects not based on need but rather, “political muscle.”
Ellis predicted a return of the earmark in their past form would be difficult in the House.
“The fact is, earmarks have a bad rap with the public,” Ellis said. “So, bringing them back wouldn’t go over very well. So there is an optics issue. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but it would be politically risky.”
