Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), far left, chairs a House Appropriations Committee hearing, March 31, 2022, on Capitol Hill.
In 2011, as part of a supposed good-government reform by Republicans, the use of earmarks was abolished. An earmark is funding for a local project tucked into an appropriation bill by a member of Congress.
The policy change was actually pushed by the Tea Partiers to undermine public spending and weaken Democrats. In a classic case of the political naïveté of good-government types, opposition to earmarked projects in congressional appropriations became reformer conventional wisdom.
Now, a much more transparent version of earmarks is back, called Community Project Funding, thanks to House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro. This is a vast improvement over the choice of either no earmarks or the old system of backroom earmarks for the kind of sweetheart projects that led to bridges to nowhere.
Under DeLauro’s system, which is now law, the entire process is transparent. At the local level, community groups put in requests. Requests by legislators for earmarked projects are public record, available online, and referred to the relevant committee for decision. The total volume of earmarks is capped at 1 percent of appropriations.
No money can go to for-profit companies. The lawmaker requesting the earmark has to attest in writing that neither they nor their family have any personal connection to the project.
It is about as far from smoke-filled backroom dealing as Congress ever gets—and a political scientist’s dream of realistic, effective government. The New York Times quotes Molly E. Reynolds, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution: “Earmarks can help members feel like they have a stake in the legislative process, in a legislative world where power is really centralized with party leaders.” She adds: “Earmarks—community project funding, whatever you want to call them—help members feel that efficacy and remind them why they came to Washington.”
Exactly so. But even the Times can’t resist a snicker. Evoking the usual stereotypes of earmarked projects, and reinforcing public contempt for Congress, here’s the Times’ lede:
“One hundred million dollars for an airport in Mobile, Ala. Tens of thousands for upgrades to a police station in the tiny town of Milton, W.Va. Hundreds of thousands of dollars sent to Arkansas to deal with feral swine.”
Feral swine in Arkansas, yuk, yuk. But you probably wouldn’t want them in your neighborhood. If public investments are going to get made with bipartisan support, and if government is to regain a good name as solving local problems, the local member of Congress is on the front lines of advocacy for local projects. That’s why she’s there.
Rep. DeLauro deserves our thanks for making the process as open and transparent as possible to get money to where it’s needed, and the Times needs to take Political Science 101 and stop laughing up its sleeve.
