Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) spoke today to a group of bloggers about the Senate’s passage of an ethics reform bill that omits transparency and disclosure of earmarks. The measure approved by the Senate today (and the House yesterday) left out provisions previously approved to: * Require that committee reports identify all earmarks in the legislation; * Prohibit consideration of bills with undisclosed earmarks; * Require disclosure of all earmarks in a conference report; * Prohibit earmarks conditioned on a Member’s stance on legislation; and, * Prohibit earmarks that would benefit a Member or his or her family and close associates. DeMint and Coburn expressed disappointment, but not surprise at the defeat. Senator DeMint regarded 14 ‘no’ votes a pretty good total, since most Senators felt they could not afford (politically) to vote against a bill with ‘ethics’ in the title. He noted the support of some in leadership, notably Senators Lott, Cornyn, and Ensign (while Senator McConnell voted in favor). When I asked the Senators what the next step is to enacting these reforms, they said that more education is necessary; Coburn said that the American people need to find out that ‘the wool has been pulled over their eyes.’ People ought to be disgusted he said, at the lack of integrity in this bill, adding ‘this is not pretense, it’s pure deception.’ Coburn argued that the American people need to know about this, and in the long run, the American people will win. With earmarks as a topic, it’s no surprise that the Senators had the chance to field a question about Senator Ted Stevens. Perhaps surprisingly for two who’ve fought so hard against the appropriations culture, DeMint and Coburn both said that it ‘s too early to condemn Stevens or ask him to step down from any committees. Both agreed that since there are not yet any specific charges, it wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss any penalties. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal prompted Senator DeMint to discuss at some length the problems with earmarks, asking whether infrastructure maintenance might go under-funded because elected officials are so focused on earmarks for new projects. DeMint said that this was an excellent point, and that ‘people have not begun to digest the waste and the opportunity cost’ of distributing funds through political priorities rather than real priorities. He noted that earmarks usually have state and local match requirements, so for local governments to take advantage of the earmarks given them, they need to allocate more money to projects that might not be priorities. DeMint also talked about the time that Members devote to handling the tens of thousands of earmarks included in federal legislation each year. He pointed to this as one reason that Congress doesn’t tackle important issues such as entitlement reform and tax reform.
