Tensions continue to simmer over House earmarks rule

Recriminations continued to fly Monday despite a bipartisan agreement struck last week to include earmarks up front in House spending bills, with each side jockeying for high ground in public opinion.

After taking a beating last week, Democrats came out swinging, circulating a memo targeting individual Republicans for "hypocrisy" on the issue by refusing to disclose their own earmark requests.

At the same time, a prominent leader, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, disclosed his own list of 24 earmark requests, ranging from the Art Institute of Chicago to the John G. Shedd Aquarium.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office then put out a memo calling last year's GOP earmark disclosure rules a "fig leaf" and noting that "use of earmarks exploded under Republican control."

House Republicans hit back, arguing they moved to limit the amount of requests members could make last year while Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., lifted such requirements, resulting in the more than 32,000 requests he and his staff have had to sift through.

Republicans said that last year they moved to limit member requests for each subcommittee, which resulted in a 37 percent drop in total requests for House bills -- from 34,867 in fiscal 2006 to 21,863 in fiscal 2007, according to a GOP leadership aide.

One of the Republicans targeted by the Democrats' memo for not publicly disclosing requests, Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, said she complied with existing requirements and that she would "gladly" put her name next to any project she is awarded.

"This is just a smoke screen put up by liberal leadership because they feel like they got caught with their hand in the cookie jar," a Blackburn spokesman said.

Swift consideration of the remaining spending bills will depend on unanimous consent agreements between the two parties.

But given the lingering partisan bad blood from last week's debate, it is unclear how long the detente will last, and some Democrats have hinted that if things go south they might revisit the idea of closed rules for spending bills.

The House takes up a $31.6 billion fiscal 2008 Energy and Water bill Tuesday that will be the last to proceed without earmarks included -- although those will be added before the measure is sent to the Senate.

As part of that deal, the chamber adopted a rule change Monday that allows a member to raise a point of order that could block consideration of conference reports if they contain any provisions that were not included in initial House or Senate versions of the bills.

Republicans adopted a similar rule change last year, which prompted them to declare victory about the Democrats apparent capitulation.

"Tonight's action restores the first real budget reforms in years and will provide more transparency and accountability in the congressional earmark process," said Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who promised to try to extend disclosure to authorization and tax bills.

"This is an important victory -- for taxpayers who will now be able to see the wasteful spending the majority was trying to hide, and for lawmakers who can challenge this spending on the House floor," he said.

But the document circulated by Hoyer notes that the GOP rule change did not require disclosure of financial interest in a project.

By contrast, the document notes praise for Democrats' earlier rule change in January from anti-earmark crusader Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who said at the time that "I want to compliment the Democrats for doing stronger earmark reform than we did."

This rule, however, resulted in widespread confusion over what constitutes financial interest in a project, and after repeated requests, Obey delayed the March 16 deadline for earmark requests by a month and a half.

At the same time, in his March 20 letter announcing the delay, Obey lifted initial limits on member requests to each Appropriations subcommittee.

Obey did so because of confusion among members over whether a project they signed a letter in support of, along with other members, would count against their overall project requests.