Earmarker in Chief

[amaverick]

Earmarker in Chief
June 15, 2006; Page A14

The Congressional debate over "earmarks" continues, and not in a way that makes the GOP majority look good. This week the Members are pushing through another 1,500 special spending projects, even as the controversy has engulfed California's Jerry Lewis, who as House Appropriations Chairman is earmarker in chief.

Federal investigators are examining whether Mr. Lewis abused his position by steering earmarks to his political friends and former employees. In one case, the Justice Department is investigating whether defense industry lobbyists were urged to contribute money to a political action committee run by Mr. Lewis's stepdaughter, with a good portion of the money used for her own salary.


Another aspect of the probe is said to be whether Mr. Lewis steered hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarked projects to the clients of his friend, campaign contributor and former House colleague Bill Lowery. One of Mr. Lowery's clients is an unindicted co-conspirator in the bribery scandal that sent former Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham to jail for approving earmarks to defense contractors in exchange for personal gifts.

The lobbying firm's defense clients receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts from Appropriations. Two of the top rainmakers at Mr. Lowery's firm have been former Appropriations staffers who worked for Mr. Lewis. This week, the Los Angeles Times reported that Mr. Lowery's firm paid one of those staffers, Jeffrey Shockey, nearly $2 million when he left the firm and returned to Appropriations when Mr. Lewis became Chairman in 2005. Roll Call newspaper also reported this week that Mr. Shockey's former lobbying firm received more than $1 million in higher fees from government contractors shortly after he returned to Capitol Hill.

Mr. Lewis recently hired a top criminal defense team and denies any wrongdoing. He says that all earmarks and contracts went for projects with the "highest standards of public benefit." But even if all of this is technically legal, the cronyism and revolving door between Congress and lobbyists look terrible and certainly won't help Republicans restore an image of fiscal rectitude before November.

More broadly, the Lewis episode underscores the link between Member-steered earmarks and the opportunity for corruption. Convicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff openly boasted that earmarks were his political currency and he called the Appropriations Committee that doles them out a "favor factory" for lobbyists. Duke Cunningham parlayed earmarks into a Rolls Royce in his driveway, until his greed landed him in the pokey. We also now know that one of the major beneficiaries of the most notorious earmark from last year -- the $300 million Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska -- is a relative of GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski.

This spring, House Republicans elected new leaders and promised to restrain earmarking. But this week the House is busily approving a $68 billion Treasury, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development spending bill stuffed with more than 1,500 new earmarks at a cost of some $900 million.

They include $500,000 for a scenic trail in Monterey, California; $1.5 million for the William Faulkner Museum in Oxford, Mississippi; $500,000 for a swimming pool in Columbus, Ohio; and $500,000 for an athletic facility in Yucaipa, California. Several of these projects, including the athletic facility, have been promoted by Bill Lowery's lobbying firm -- the very firm in the middle of the Jerry Lewis probe.

Yesterday, Jeff Flake of Arizona and other Members offered amendments to strip the earmarks, but they lost those floor votes by a wide margin. Our favorite: a $500,000 earmark for renovating a swimming pool in Banning, California. The same pool had already received a $250,000 earmark in each of the previous two years. Mr. Flake's floor proposal to strike the swimming hole subsidy got all of 61 votes.

In a rare bit of good news, Congressman Mark Kirk of Illinois prevailed on his amendment to prohibit any federal funds for the Alaska bridge project. The House Budget Committee also passed yesterday, on a 24-9 bipartisan vote, a modified line-item veto that would give Presidents the ability to strip out some of the worst of these projects. One of the loudest critics of the item veto is, ahem, Mr. Lewis. But meanwhile, in the spending bills where it matters, Congress is earmarking as usual.

If Republicans aren't spooked by the Lewis investigation, they should be. Here is one of their major barons under investigation for the kind of high-handed spending favoritism that voters detest about Washington. Republicans won the House in 1994 in part because the House Bank and Post Office scandals revealed the arrogance of a Democratic majority that believed it could do anything and voters would never send them packing. If Republicans don't change their behavior, earmarking could be the story that does the same for them this year.

[VTJames]

Yeah! Good post. Let's get rid of those Dems in Rep clothing. Big spending and the Democrats Culture of Corruption have to go! Look at the state I live in, I could go on and on on the topic! Americans would be better served by taking the checkbook, the pen, the credit card, and the cash away from our "good willing political volunteers". I hate RINOs just as much as I hate big spending criminal liberals.

Here's another example (sorry, it crosses the aisle on you, though):

Just one year after the U.S. Supreme Court's dreadful Kelo v. City of New London decision that sparked a national outcry against government eminent domain abuse, some in Congress are preparing to bring a new threat to property owners in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) wants to transform the entire Route 15 corridor, from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, into a National Heritage Area (the "Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Act," H.R. 5195). National Heritage Areas are best described as preservation zones where the National Park Service and designated preservationist groups team up to influence how an area is developed (or not developed).

According to Representative Wolf, "The Journey Through Hallowed Ground Corridor holds more American history than any other region in the country and its recognition as a National Heritage Area will elevate its national prominence, as deserved." He also claims this initiative is an "effort to create economic opportunity by celebrating the unique place in American history this region holds."

However, Representative Wolf's flowery, innocuous rhetoric is little more than sheep's clothing used to disguise what amounts to a pork-barrel earmark awarded to preservationist interest groups. Worse yet, instead of merely providing pork Representative Wolf's earmark is purchasing lobbyists.

H.R. 5195 would essentially deputize the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), along with other like-minded preservationist groups and the Park Service, to oversee land use policy in the corridor. This consortium of preservation elitists and federal bureaucrats would form a "management entity" and be given a federal mandate to create an "inventory" of all property in the area that it wants "preserved," "managed" or "acquired" because of its "national historic significance."

In an effort to downplay concerns from property rights advocates, a spokesperson for the Journey Through Hallowed Ground (JTHG) Partnership (the umbrella group that is spearheading the Heritage Area effort) claims, "A National Heritage Area ... does not interfere with the local authority at all." Such a statement signifies either extreme ignorance of the legislation or outright dishonesty. In reality, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Act is specifically designed to interfere with local authorities.

The "management entity" would have the authority to disburse federal monies to "States and their political subdivisions" to promote land use policies that are favored by the entity (including land acquisition) in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. However, taxpayers would not vote on the entity's leadership or have a say in its direction. In addition, eligibility for membership in the board of directors of the "management entity" would be limited to members of the partnership just prior to the legislation's enactment.

The special interests couldn't ask for much more than what Representative Wolf is providing them: a congressionally ordained, members-only club funded by taxpayers for the express purpose of making taxpayers live under the club's rules.

The bill lists as one of its "purposes" that all "significant historic, cultural and recreational sites in the Heritage Area" should be managed "in a manner consistent with compatible economic development." And, of course, which sites are deemed "significant" and which types of development are deemed "compatible" is up to the discretion of the JTHG conglomerate.

One of the chief beneficiaries of Representative Wolf's earmark is The National Trust for Historic Preservation, an organization with a clear anti-property rights agenda. Peter Brink, senior vice president of The National Trust, also serves as vice-chairman of JTHG's board of directors.

As author James Bovard has observed: "Preservationists have 'progressed' from targeting specific buildings to targeting neighborhoods and even entire valleys and states for strict, government-enforced controls ... The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the premier preservationist organization, has gone from seeking to educate Americans about historic treasures to clamoring for maximum restrictions on private land use across the nation."

In a much publicized case last year a Louisa, Virginia man who simply wanted to renovate his home ran into stiff opposition from NTHP. Emily Wadhams, The National Trust's vice president for public policy, argued against the rights of the homeowner in a hearing on Capitol Hill, testifying, "[P]rivate property rights have never been allowed to take precedence over our shared national values and the preservation of our country's heritage."

There is little doubt that those who make this ground "hallowed" would take umbrage with Wadham's brash attempt at revisionist history. Thomas Jefferson once said, "The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management." Yet, Wadham's words and NTHP's deeds make it clear: Fundamental property rights are merely inconvenient barriers to the National Trust's rigid management agenda.

The National Trust has worked to defeat state ballot initiatives designed to restore the private property rights of landowners. For instance, citizens in both Oregon and Washington have had to contend with the National Trust political machine in their battle to receive fair compensation when the government devalues their land by taking their property rights.

The group also vehemently opposes common-sense road improvements. NTHP lobbied to kill plans for a much-needed "outer connector" that would have brought traffic relief to the heavily congested area near Chancellorsville Battlefield in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Why? According to the National Trust, the connector "would pass within a mile of the park boundary." How, exactly, a road one mile away from the battlefield would harm it is not clear.

The Journey Through Hallowed Ground debate is about more than how land in the area should be managed. It is a question of who should be doing the managing: Local officials and the citizens to whom they are directly responsible or unaccountable special interest groups and equally unaccountable federal bureaucrats?

We should never seek to honor the heroes of our nation's founding by trampling the sacred principles for which they fought and died—namely property rights and limited, local government.
Peyton Knight is The National Center for Public Policy Research's director of environmental and regulatory affairs. Comments may be sent to PKnight@nationalcenter.org.