There were some major steps forward in the U.S. Senate last week toward achieving genuine earmark reform, but this battle is anything but over and nobody should forget that most Washington politicians must be pressured every step of the way. The hard truth is that the progress made thus far in the Senate is encouraging, but it wouldn’t have occurred without some hard-headed senators who refused to quit challenging the status quo and a swarm of bloggers from across the political spectrum who refused to shut up about it.
The good news here is that the amendment of Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to the Senate ethics bill was adopted. The amendment changed the Senate bill to include the much more rigorous earmark disclosure rules proposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Without that change, only about 5 percent of all earmarks would have been disclosed. DeMint refused to back down when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tried to use a legislative trick to prevent a vote. When bloggers spread the word about the obstacles being thrown up against DeMint’s amendment, Reid was forced to back off. Some hard negotiations ensued, but the result was DeMint’s amendment was adopted with broad support from senators in both parties.
But there are still major problems with the Senate ethics bill. The Senate leadership played a fast one on the amendment that bans members from promoting earmarks that financially benefit themselves, members of their families or their staffs, or the families of staff members. As USA Today’s recent investigation revealed, members in 2005 pushed earmarks worth hundreds of millions of tax dollars that benefited family members or relatives of staff members. Reid allowed a voice vote on the amendment to ban such earmarks, but not a recorded vote. That means nobody should be surprised if the final conference committee report on the legislation somehow loses this particular earmark ban.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who sponsored the amendment to ban earmarks benefiting staff and family members, believes such an outcome is exactly what congressional leaders are planning. But, says Coburn, the “American people won’t be hoodwinked by politicians who condemn the culture of corruption while enriching themselves and their family members with earmarks … Any conference report on this bill that includes a ban on $20 meals but doesn’t include a ban on $100 million earmarks that financially benefit politicians, their families or their staff members will be an insult to the intelligence of every single taxpayer.” With Coburn’s warning in mind, we trust, as President Reagan would say, that Congress will do the right thing on earmark reform, but we also fully intend to verify that they actually do it.
