Democrats and Republicans joined together to strip a pet project of Rep. John Murtha’s (D-Pa.) from the 2009 intelligence authorization bill — the same project Democrats defended last year.

The Murtha earmark, $23 million for the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), was one of a handful of pet projects eliminated from the bill in a lopsided 17-4 vote. Several Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee joined with Republicans to support the amendment, which was sponsored by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), the panel’s ranking Republican.

Hoekstra said he did not recall who voted against his amendment, although he said it included Republicans as well as Democrats. 

Most Democrats supported the move to keep the bill earmark-free, an outcome that surprised and encouraged Hoekstra.

“I was a little surprised,” he said. “I had thought the majority was going to say, ‘No, we’re keeping our earmarks.’

“This bill should be about our national security priorities,” he continued. “The best way to give confidence to the American people in this bill, which is largely kept out of public view, is to focus on our national security priorities not something that’s being driven by member requests.”

Hoekstra said Democrats’ decision to join his amendment could be a sign that other appropriations and authorizations bills this year could be earmark-free as well.

The NDIC project has caused several headaches for Democrats. In 2007, Murtha attacked Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on the House floor when Rogers tried to cut the NDIC from the 2008 intelligence authorization bill.

Murtha later apologized for threatening any future earmark request from Rogers.

The NDIC, located in Murtha’s district, was slated for closure in the president’s budget proposal for fiscal 2008 after an Office of Management and Budget review concluded it duplicated other federal efforts.

Despite the controversy, Democrats rejected Rogers’s efforts to strip it from the bill last year in committee and on the House floor.

This year’s vote occurred without fanfare Thursday afternoon, mainly because it took place in the Intelligence panel’s secure room in the Capitol, which is not open to reporters or the public.

While portions of the meeting were secret, the vote was held during a public time, so a transcript is expected to be available Wednesday, if not sooner.

Still, members of the panel were keeping the identities of the Democrats who joined Hoekstra’s effort close to the vest for now.

The committee’s Democratic spokesman could not provide a breakdown of the vote by press time.

Murtha spokesman Matthew Mazonkey declined to comment.

Kevin Smith, a spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), said it was curious that Democrats appear to be changing their stance on NDIC, at least at the committee level.

“Republicans have put tremendous pressure on Democrats to disavow Murtha over this earmark, and it seems that more and more of them are coming to the conclusion that it is indefensible,” he said.

Republicans have labeled the NDIC a “Clinton-era pork-barrel boondoggle” and said the additional $23 million slated for the project in the intelligence bill should be spent on hiring more intelligence officers. Government watchdog groups, which have criticized the NDIC earmark for months, applauded the decision to strip it and all other earmarks from the intelligence authorization bill this year.

“It just shows that the stakes are really high when you start talking about our intelligence authorization,” said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense. “We shouldn’t be making decisions on our intelligence-gathering priorities based on the pet project request of powerful lawmakers.”