Quarrels Over Earmarks Continue in House of Representatives

March 7, 2008

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) left the door open March 6 for a Democratic-sponsored move to impose a moratorium on legislative earmarks, sidestepping a question at her weekly news conference on the issue.

Asked directly if House Democrats planned a moratorium, Pelosi said, "My patience is running out on earmarks. I'll tell you that. So I don't intend to spend a whole lot of time talking about them. We will either have them, or we won't, but we are not going to spend a lot of time talking about it."  

The comments came a day after Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, issued a brief survey to House members asking them if they favored an earmark moratorium for the year and would not be submitting earmark requests to his committee for approval, or instead favored "responsible earmarks at a reasonable level" and would be submitting requests.  

Obey said those members that did not reply by March 19 would be assumed to oppose earmarks and not submit requests in 2008. The stance resembled the one Obey took in consideration over the Labor-Health-Human Services appropriations bill in 2007, when he forced a vote on whether to strip out all earmarks from the bill, after continued GOP criticisms of earmarks. The motion failed, with 148 Republicans voting in favor of keeping earmarks.  

House Republicans have continued to call for earmark reforms, though, and cited instances where they say Democrats have inappropriately inserted them in bills. They have sought Democratic support for further moves on earmarks. In particular, they have sought Democratic support for a proposal by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) to form a select committee to examine the earmark process and impose a temporary moratorium during the panel's deliberations.  

With the fiscal 2009 budget resolution set to come to the House floor the week of March 10, the issue of earmarks could emerge again. Republicans in the House Budget Committee offered an amendment March 5 during the budget panel's markup session to create the earmark committee. It was defeated on a 16-21 party-line vote after the Budget Committee's chairman, Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), said its adoption would require a second committee referral for the budget resolution and slow down the budget process.