Rep. Steny Hoyer, the incoming majority leader in the House, said Tuesday he wants to revive the use of earmarks in congressional bills and predicted the move will have bipartisan support in both chambers.
The Maryland Democrat added his voice to a debate that’s percolating on Capitol Hill, with key Democrats eager to restore a practice that helps grease the wheels for leaders to flex power — but also led to corruption.
Republicans forced an end to earmarking when they won control of the House in the 2010 election, but lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been itching to start again, saying it’s Congress’s duty to direct taxpayers’ money where it’s needed.
“I am for what the Constitution says that Congress has the authority and responsibility to do — raise and spend money,” Mr. Hoyer told reporters. “We are co-equal branches — that is our authority under the Constitution. We don’t have to go hat in hand to the president and say, ‘Please, will you spend money on this, that, or the other?’ “
Earmarks are line-items tucked into bills carving a portion of spending out for roads, parking garages and military weapons systems at the insistence of a particular lawmaker or two.
Critics call it pork-barrel spending, pointing to projects such as the “Bridge to Nowhere,” which would have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a bridge to an Alaskan island with a permanent population of 50 people.
Mr. Hoyer laid out specific conditions he envisioned attaching to the practice that lawmakers had signed off on in the past, saying that the spending would have to be reported online for the public to view, that members and their families wouldn’t stand to personally benefit financially and that the spending would be restricted to public sector and nonprofit groups.
“We want to make sure that these are done open and above-board,” he said.
Senate Majority Mitch McConnell said last month that he hadn’t really thought about the subject, but that he couldn’t imagine the Senate GOP rules banning the practice would change.
But Mr. Hoyer predicted that there would be bipartisan, bicameral support for moving forward.
“I can’t predict [because] I don’t know the votes in the Senate on this, but I will tell you there is significant Senate involvement,” he said.
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