If you have heard the term ‘earmarking’ but don’t really know exactly what it means, here is the Wikipedia definition.
In the United States legislative appropriations process, Congress has, within the powers granted under Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, the power to direct the appropriations of money drawn from the treasury. This includes the power to earmark funds it appropriates (in other words, “to designate revenue”) to be spent on specific named projects. The earmarking process is a regular part of the process of allocating funds within the federal government. Each of the appropriations subcommittees have their own practices for determining whether and what kind of projects they are willing to earmark, and each sets rules for how earmark requests are to be received from members, including setting deadlines and required format for submissions.
Allowing members of Congress to earmark funds has a variety of purposes. For the member of Congress, the earmark allows them to take credit for providing a project of interest to their constituents. Allowing earmarked projects is often a tool that Appropriations committee chairs use to ensure that they can secure and hold the votes of members of Congress to help their bill pass. An earmark directing specific projects to be funded allows agencies to bypass regulatory determinations over the matter, saving them administrative time and effort.
Earmarking differs from the broader appropriations process where Congress grants a lump sum to an agency to allocate according to the agency’s legal authority, within the discretion allowed by law, according to the agency’s internal budgeting process. Earmarks specifically direct the actions of federal agencies, obliging them to spend a portion of the budget on special projects as directed by Congress.
The House passed a bill making it a requirement that the authors of all earmarks be designated in spending bills. The Democrats in the Senate wanted to water down that requirement. Thankfully, they utterly failed. And we can thank a very conservative Senator, Jim DeMint of South Carolina.
Last week the House Democrats passed an unexpectedly broad change to their chamber’s rules that would disclose the size, purpose and sponsor of any earmark.
But on Thursday, when Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, introduced the same thing in the Senate, Democratic leaders moved quickly to squash it, calling the House bill ill thought out.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said he was happy to see the House “moving things along very quickly.” But, Mr. Reid said, “frankly, I don’t think they spent the time on this that we have.”
The Democratic leaders’ effort to block the DeMint proposal was defeated by a vote of 51 to 46, surprising almost everyone in the Senate.
I am going to put the roll call below the fold. Please consider sending a thank you note to all the Democrats that crossed the aisle to vote with DeMint. Joe Lieberman finally got a vote right, too.
This was a vote to kill DeMint’s amendment, so a ‘YEA’ vote is a vote against labeling earmarks.
Grouped By Vote Position
YEAs —46
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Bunning (R-KY)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dodd (D-CT)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lott (R-MS)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Smith (R-OR)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
NAYs —51
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Bond (R-MO)
Burr (R-NC)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (I-CT)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Obama (D-IL)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Tester (D-MT)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Warner (R-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Not Voting – 3
Brownback (R-KS)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Cheers to a victory for transparency.
Kudos to freshman Senators Jon Tester and Jim Webb. I can’t say I’m surprised they voted no, but I am glad they did. It’s exactly the kind of thing they campaigned on.
Look! Something I can complain about Bob Casey for!
…see, PsiFighter, I knew it wouldn’t be long. 🙂
Yup.
This is a realtively minor vote, and Casey merely followed this wishes of Reid and Durbin. But he was wrong.
Yeah, I’ll just consider being annoyed with this vote as practice for when the stem cell thing comes up and he votes the wrong way on that too…
Hopefully all the bills he votes wrong on pass anyway like this and the stem cell bill* 🙂
(* – Yeah, I know it’ll get vetoed)
Oops…shouldn’t have said ‘pass anyway’ since there will likely be bills he votes yes on that we want to fail.
Happy to see this amendment was passed. Also glad to see Martinez and Nelson of FL do the right thing as well! Sad to see that anyone even voted to kill this amendment.
I note that Obama got the vote right. I will remember that.
Good point! We need to keep track so we can evaluate based on fact not our perception of what happened.
Sounds good… Earmarks aren’t necessarily bad things — they often cover programs that are necessary or beneficial but don’t “fit” under an agency’s specific goals or mission statement, so can’t be included in their budget otherwise. A lot of scientific research projects fall into this category, for instance. Because the government doesn’t have to focus on profits and keeping shareholders happy from one quarter to the next, federal monies fund a lot of more risky or speculative or long-term development projects that corporations can’t or won’t finance themselves.
But still, it doesn’t hurt to know WHO sponsored or introduced a particular earmark into the budget. It shouldn’t be something they’re ashamed of… right?
The various federal agencies have been chewing their collective fingernails and developing “worst case” scenarios, trying to guestimate how much money they will or won’t have for all the projects they are hoping make it into the not-yet-approved 2007 budget. Rumor hath it that the Democrats plan to just do a very long term continuing resolution to continue FY06 levels of funding… but that will definitely shortchange some programs along the way.
Earmarks also serve as a counter to corruption in the Executive Branch. I have a good friend who has worked many years as a Democratic legislative aide. He says that Bush’s increasingly politicized executive appointees cheerfully put the vast majority of government expenditures to benefit his contributors and allied legislators. Dem legislators find they have to earmark stuff for their districts or they don’t get anything like a fair share.
He thinks earmarks are bad, but that to fix them we will have to return the upper levels of the bureaucracy to the civil service.
Good on all the Democrats who voted against the leadership’s dumb plan to water the plan down. Especially great to see Tester and Webb show their integrity and stick to their guns.
Oh My Gosh!. . . .I have to sit down and catch my breath. My two idiot Republican Idaho Senators voted right on this one. Is this the Rapture? I guess I better email them and thank them for getting one right for a change. Lord knows I am all over them all of the time for their usual stupid corporate votes.
My, My, My.
Agree! We need to affirm the positive and correct the negative behavior. I sound like a parent with a child! Guess some of these folks still need parental guidance!
It’s a mix of very good Senators who are real crusaders for good governance (Feingold, Kerry, Obama, Harkin and presumably Webb and Tester) and centrist Dems who are probably doing favors for Republican friends (Landrieu, Nelson). Not sure about Cantwell. The whole process, from Dem leadership opposition to the very odd alliance that passed it (Stevens voting for good governance!) is a pretty classic “making sausages” situation. But I’m glad it passed.
comes from the state known for “government in the sunshine,” the only legal way to conduct the people’s business in Florida.
That’s why the Florida delegation voted the way it did.
In this meatloaf?
I can think of one. It’s a way for rural areas to pass general legislation that affects rural areas and deny general legislation that affects urban areas. In the past, Democrats could slip in programs for New York or Chicago or other urban areas through a last-minute earmark. This is the Senate after all; the same problem as the electoral college only worse. However, I am willing to see that given up for transparent governance.
Sometimes Gollum is useful.