Dems - Only Stand By Your Pork After Its Cooked
Posted by Andy on March 15th, 2007
Via TomDelay
Upon assuming power in November, House Democrats passed a new rule pertaining to earmarks which reads, “…written disclosure for any congressional earmarks … included in any measure reported by the committee or conference report filed by the Chairman of the committee or any subcommittee thereof shall be open for public inspection.”[emphasis added]
On Tuesday, however, Democrats chose to disobey their own, seemingly straightforward, regulation. Roll Call reports (registration required),
A little before noon Tuesday, while a Roll Call reporter was leafing through a stack of the several-hundred Water Resources Development Act earmark request letters on file in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Republican offices, a staff member came over and explained that Democrats had requested their letters be removed from the public file. Several staffers then pulled the Democratic letters from the file drawer, and the reporter complied by handing over the request letters of Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (Calif.), Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (Calif.) and 15 other Democrats from the pile he was reading.
You see, the Republicans on the committee had made the earmark request letters on the highway bill (from both parties) available for public inspection, but the Democrats objected, saying they did not want any such inspection to take place until the bill itself had been finalized – clearly disregarding the spirit if not the precise letter of their brand new rule.
Luckily, John Mica (R-FL) walked in on the earmark snatching staffers and had this to say,
“I’m not playing that game,” Mica said. “They are all free and open and we should not be pulling them … if [the Democrats] want us to pull them, they are not complying with their own rules…”
Unfortunately, Mica was forced to relent, but has vowed to take up the matter with the stonewalling Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman, Jim Oberstar (D-MN) who contends that the earmark letters themselves should not be released until the final bill.
So taxpayers can’t actually find out who is ramming pork projects through Congress until it is too late? And if they never pass….. no one will ever know about it.