Senate Republicans decided Wednesday to keep their internal conference rule against earmarks, declining to join House Republicans in officially permitting members to take part in Democrats’ revamped special project funding process.
But even though the conference rule remains in place, it can’t stop Republicans who to want to participate in the practice of allowing members of Congress to designate direct spending for certain programs or projects in their districts while circumventing the normal appropriations process, a system that Democrats revived this year after a 10-year pause.
After debating the matter during the caucus lunch earlier Wednesday, Senate Republicans held a conference meeting in which they were expected to vote on the matter. But the matter did not come up for a vote, senators told reporters after the meeting.
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who is opposed to earmarks, told reporters that there was not even any discussion of earmarks. “Either we had the votes to defeat” a proposal to remove the rule, he told the press pool, “or it was an embarrassing fight to have and they decided not to have the fight.”
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“It’s up to the individual,” said Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “Are we going to give the Democrats in the Senate $8 billion to use against us? I hope not, but if you don’t want a earmark, don’t ask for one. And even if you ask for one, you might not get one.”
Congress banned earmarks in 2011 following widespread bipartisan outrage over waste and abuse, such as Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere” in that was meant to connect one town to an airport but was never completed.
Senate Republicans added the ban on earmarks to their conference rules in 2019, with a rule that stipulates it “is the policy of the Republican Conference that no Member shall request a congressionally directed spending item, limited tax benefit, or limited tariff benefit, as such items are used in Rule XLIV of the Standing Rules of the Senate.”
But this year, House Democrats have brought back a revamped version of the earmarks process, allowing House Republicans to accept “community project funding” requests from members with some additional measures meant to guard against abuse.
That put Republicans in a tight spot, with both the Senate Republicans and House Republicans having conference rules against their members participating in the practice. But despite heavy criticism from some conservatives, the House Republican Conference voted last month to allow Republican members to request funds for their district, with some additional rules.
Division over earmarks sparked an internal battle, with some Republicans coming out strongly against the push to remove the earmarks ban.
Fifteen Senate Republicans, including Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Marco Rubio of Florida, signed a letter on Monday pledging to vote against repealing the conference’s earmarks ban. The letter called earmarks an “inherently wasteful spending practice that is prone to serious abuse.”
“Earmarks are just a symbolic way of taking us back to the way things used to work, and piles on to the kind of reckless spending it looks like we’re experiencing currently,” Indiana Republican Sen. Mike Braun told the press pool on Wednesday.
Because Senate Republican conference rules are not biding, meaning there are no tangible consequences for a Republican member who breaks the rules, there can still be senators who go and request earmarks anyway.
After the Wednesday meeting, Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito told reporters that she is open to using earmarks, and Maine Sen. Susan Collins said that she plans to request earmarks.
Barring Republicans from participating in the new and improved earmark system comes with political risks. A Democrat could go back to his or her district or state and point to the specific money brought back to the area and note that the Republicans refused to ask for it. And refusing to participate in the process can deprive their states of funding for key projects that might not otherwise get federal money.
“The old earmark days, they’re gone. They going to have to be meritorious, they’re gonna have to be substantive,” Shelby said.
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South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has also argued in favor of earmarks, saying that former President Donald Trump also appears to support them.
“Democrats do it. If we don’t do it, we’re stupid,” Graham said last month.
