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2009-02-26 Home Front: Politix
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Two Obama Cabinet Members Added Earmarks to Omnibus Spending Bill
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Two of President Obama's Cabinet members authored a variety of earmarks in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill the House is poised to pass Wednesday to keep the government running through Oct. 1.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis were both House members when appropriators began to forge this legislation last year. However, a stalemate between President Bush and congressional Democrats forced the sides to punt the rest of the spending provisions until now.
New transparency rules ordered up by Democrats two years ago require lawmakers requesting earmarks to write a letter expressly asking Congress to dedicate money for a given project. And as one scours the omnibus spending bill, it's easy to find specific appeals from people who are no longer in office, like LaHood and Solis.
In LaHood's case, the former Republican Illinois congressman wrote a March 19, 2008, letter asking Congress set aside funding to move the "Jacksonville bandstand" from one of the House office buildings to the National Museum of American History in Washington. LaHood also earmarked funds for police radio upgrades, agriculture research and equipment at a planetarium in Peoria, Ill.
As a Democratic congresswoman from suburban Los Angeles, Solis asked for the federal government to cover the cost of police equipment in Covina, Monterey Park and Baldwin Park, Calif.
As Cabinet secretaries, LaHood and Solis will continue to have significant sway over Washington policy decisions. But because the omnibus bill is a holdover from last year, dozens of lawmakers who either retired or lost re-election are still legislating from the political grave.
After surviving a tight race in 2006, Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio, decided not to seek re-election in 2008. But the House Wednesday will approve Pryce's request to fund after school programs at the YWCA. Former Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., was one of the most-vulnerable freshman Democrats to win a House seat in 2006. She didn't survive a 2008 challenge from Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins. But Boyda's earmark to "identify and trace food-borne zoonotic diseases" lives on.
Former Rep. Tom Allen failed to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine last fall. Still, Allen earmarked money for "Lowbush Wild Blueberry Research" and potato cloning programs at the University of Maine.
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Posted by Fred 2009-02-26 00:00||
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