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Rep. Boehner declares ‘war’ over approps |
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By Mike Soraghan and Jackie Kucinich
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Posted: 06/13/07 07:35 PM [ET] |
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) yesterday moved to “declare war” on the appropriations earmarks process set by House Democrats last week, vowing to use parliamentary procedures to delay and potentially thwart spending bills.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) threatened to keep the House in session through the weekend to get four pending appropriations bills done this week.
“Enough is enough,” Boehner said, adding that the new process does not allow adequate time for members to review earmarks before they are included in the spending bill. “They’ve traded earmark transparency for earmark secrecy, and American taxpayers deserve better.”
Republicans have criticized House Democrats for offering to add earmarks in during conference, when they cannot be formally challenged on the floor. Money has been set aside for the projects in the bills, leading Republicans to accuse Democrats of creating “slush funds.”
Democrats argued that Republicans are using earmarks as an excuse to block the largest increase in veterans’ healthcare funding — $12.7 billion — and other popular spending programs because they don’t want to take on the substance of Democratic proposals.
“They have not been able to find anything of substance to complain about,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.). He quoted former Vice President Spiro Agnew in dubbing Republican complainers “nattering nabobs of negativism.”
Democrats also accused Republicans of hypocrisy, stressing that the use of earmarks ballooned during 12 years of GOP rule.
Often, they recalled, Republicans “air-dropped” earmarks into conference reports at the last second.
If Republicans slow down floor action, Democrats could send the spending bills back to the Rules Committee and bring them back under closed rules that don’t allow amendments.
Appropriations bills are traditionally open to amendments, and Republicans said that if Democratic leaders try to close the rules to amendments, they will escalate further — going from slowing the process to effectively stopping it.
But that wasn’t something Democrats were ready to talk about.
“It’s our intention to proceed in the regular order,” Hoyer said twice when asked at his weekly briefing about the prospect of limiting amendments.
Another option is to do away with earmarks altogether, a prospect raised by Obey Monday.
Leaders did not immediately move to head off the confrontation. A spokesman for Appropriations Committee ranking member Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) said Lewis and Obey had not spoken about the GOP tactics to try and work out any form of compromise.
But Hoyer and House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) talked intently on the floor as the debate began on homeland security appropriations yesterday.
Later in the day, Boehner introduced a resolution to try to restore last year’s GOP rules that required members to assign their names to earmarks and allow attempts to strike them on the floor.
“Our resolution will restore the earmark reforms Republican put in place last year that have been unceremoniously gutted by House Democrats this year,” Boehner said in a statement.
Hoyer responded that the earmark reform rule Republicans want to resurrect never went into effect last year. Instead, it was delayed until this year, but Democrats took over and enacted their own rules.
Yet anti-pork crusader Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) last year was allowed to challenge individual earmarks on the floor during the last Congress. Flake’s efforts were overwhelmingly rejected by the House and sometimes triggered heated responses from the earmark sponsors.
Flake said the Democratic plan on earmarks “is just not acceptable.” He vowed to offer amendments striking the funding for the earmarks.
Republican leaders, meanwhile, yesterday rallied their members around the earmark issue on a staff-and-member level.
An internal memo from the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) to members and press staff encouraged each lawmaker to participate actively in the debate through speeches, media or press releases. The memo suggested members participate in the RSC special order speech yesterday.
Obey yesterday accused the Republicans of trying to “filibuster by amendments “ on the floor. The RSC has a list of 60 to 70 amendments for the homeland security bill alone.
During press conferences, Democrats repeatedly denied that they’re keeping earmarks secret. In the process devised by Obey, the member projects will be entered into the Congressional Record before the August recess. Conference reports are to be done in September, meaning the earmarks would be public for at least a month.
But the earmarks cannot be stricken from a conference report on a floor vote. Instead, appropriators would have to be persuaded by fellow members or public criticism. Obey said it’s still a more open process, citing high-profile efforts by Appropriations Committee members Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) and imprisoned ex-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) to secure earmarks.
“It took you a couple of years to find out what Duke Cunningham did,” Obey told reporters. “It took you a year to find Don Young’s highway in Florida.”
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