WASHINGTON -- Among the issues before the new Congress when it's sworn in this week is the question of whether to lift a 6-year-old ban on earmarks, a proposal that some say is at odds with President-elect Donald Trump's calls to "drain the swamp" in Washington.
Earmarking allowed lawmakers to add language to bills ordering a federal agency to spend a specific amount of money on a project back home.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives established a temporary prohibition on earmarks in 2010 after many voters came to see the practice as wasteful and corrupt. The Senate followed suit in 2011.
The hope among those who want to reinstate the practice is that earmarks will help the new Congress, which takes office Tuesday, overcome gridlock by giving politicians an extra incentive to work together and pass legislation.
"The most frustrated people I know about Congress are members of Congress," said Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center. "So maybe, just maybe, some of them are ready to experience a modest amount of popular critique for doing something that might make the place work better."
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., rejects the argument that members of Congress need earmarks to cooperate and do their jobs.
"What they're really saying to voters is, 'If we can't get paid off with our pet projects, then we really can't work on your behalf together,'" McCaskill said in an interview.
McCaskill, a former state auditor, was a driving force behind the push to impose a moratorium on earmarking six years ago. She also has proposed legislation that would make the Senate's ban permanent.
Earmarks embodied everything voters dislike about business as usual in Washington, McCaskill said.
"It was sprinkling fairy dust in a back room," she said. "There was no consideration of merit. No cost-benefit analysis. The public didn't even know what projects members had been asked to fund nor how they made the decisions which ones they funded. ... Now how bold is this message after this election? I mean, talk about filling the swamp."
The possibility of restoring earmarks came up at a private meeting of House Republicans the week before Thanksgiving. Lawmakers vented their frustration over gridlock in a lengthy debate, with proponents of earmarks arguing that without them, the legislative branch cedes too much of its power of the purse to the executive branch. Congress decides how much money each department and agency will get, but proponents of earmarks argue that without them, those agencies have full discretion over which communities and states actually benefit from the money.
A proposal to revive earmarks appeared to have enough support to pass, according to a Republican source in the room. The vote would have been secret. But House Speaker Paul Ryan cautioned his colleagues against restoring earmarks behind closed doors.
If lawmakers withdrew their earmark proposal, he promised a more thorough process to review earmarking and vote on it by April. That process could include forming a task force or debates on the House floor.
Opinions on earmarks do not split neatly along party lines.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., voted against prohibiting earmarks in 2010. That year he sponsored or co-sponsored 22 earmarks totaling $22.6 million, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan government accountability watchdog.
In an interview before his re-election, Blunt said he didn't expect earmarks to come back.
"But I do think there needs to be a stronger linkage between authorizing the spending and appropriating the money to do whatever was authorized," Blunt said.
Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder of Kansas, on the other hand, has been opposed to the idea of earmarks since his election to Congress in 2010, and his position hasn't changed, his spokesman, C.J. Grover, said in an email.
McCaskill's Democratic colleague from Missouri, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, said in an interview that he would be more than happy to co-sponsor or speak in favor of any measure that would bring earmarks back.
"I won't just support it. It will be a hallelujah support," Cleaver said.
Cleaver said earmarks give lawmakers a personal stake in a bill, and they ensure that federal money reaches rural and inner-city communities.
Cleaver sponsored or co-sponsored 16 earmarks for a total of more than $16 million in 2010, the last year Congress allowed the practice. Among those requests were $2.5 million for the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department to build a new community center and a half million dollars for an Emergency Operations Center in Jackson County, Mo.
Steve Ellis is vice president at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group that monitors federal spending. He said a return to earmarking "would be politically tone deaf" -- especially after Trump's victory -- and could come back to haunt lawmakers.
"I guarantee you that if they do go back to earmarks, they're going to find some earmarks where it's going to some campaign contributor, and it's going to start looking bad," he said. "That's just the nature of that process."
A Section on 01/02/2017