House Republican leaders will meet with a group of conservative members Tuesday in an attempt to remedy key differences on earmark reform before the rollout of their economic agenda later this week.

The conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) favors an immediate earmark ban, while House leadership backs a moratorium contingent on Democratic participation.

“My fear is unless we do it now, and unilaterally, no one will know it happened,” Hensarling said, adding that Republicans still need to work hard to regain their fiscal-conservative pedigree.

“This isn’t such a leadership thing as much as it’s a conference thing — we need agreement within our conference about what will be our major policy points,” he said.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the Republican Conference voted to endorse a plan introduced by Reps. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) that would establish a bipartisan panel to study ways to reform the earmarking process. Under the plan, earmarks would be banned for a year while the process was reviewed.

“Leader Boehner’s position is very clear: He does not and never will do earmarks, and he believes an earmark freeze is the first step we should take to reform a broken system,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. “The strategy the leadership has pursued to gain consensus and focus on Democrats has been successful: Over three-quarters of our members support an earmark freeze, and we are putting the pressure where it should be, on the Democrats who now control the earmark favor factory.”

Democrats have noted that fewer earmarks have been approved this Congress than in the GOP-led 109th Congress, adding that they have made the process more transparent.

Steel said Boehner’s door is always open to new ideas, “If any member can show that another strategy would work better, we are certainly open to discussing it, and we’re having those discussions.”

Regardless of the meeting’s outcome, the GOP conference will not vote about the issue this week. Hensarling must tread lightly with members who may not share his affinity for an earmark ban. He is expected to make a final plea for donations to the annual Republican President’s Dinner, of which he is chairman. The dinner raises millions for GOP incumbents and congressional candidates.

Republican Policy Chairman Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.) said the effort to coerce members into an earmark ban will ultimately backfire, since House GOP lawmakers already decided that a one-size-fits-all ban would not work in all of their districts.

“Conference coercion vitiates the relationship between the member and their constituents — that’s just reality,” McCotter said.

McCotter added that the idea that House Republicans are responsible for setting the national agenda was “thoroughly dysfunctional.”

“You have a situation where you have an incumbent president, a chosen nominee, and we provide the national agenda?” he said. “This strikes me as very dysfunctional of the party at this point.”

He added that if voters are concerned about an issue or a policy at this point, they are going to look to the top of the ticket for answers — not the House.

“We are not the field marshals, we are the foot soldiers,” he said.