Bush, Democrats joust over earmarks

Eager to set themselves apart from a Republican-led Congress tarnished by scandal, Democrats outlined a plan Wednesday to end the secrecy around earmarks inserted in legislation to funnel public money to favored interests.

“We’re going to stamp out corruption, and the proof is in the package,” Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said as she outlined reform measures that Democrats would put to a vote today and Friday.

But in a sign of how much the election has pushed reform to the top of the agenda, President Bush strode before cameras Wednesday to highlight his overhaul ideas even before the Democrats unveiled theirs.

“We need to do more,” said the president, who read a brief statement in the Rose Garden that called on the new Democratic Congress to halve the number and cost of earmarks.

The jousting between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue raised the prospect of a tussle over who could claim the mantle of reform, and bolstered reformers’ hopes that calls for change to the secretive earmarking process might no longer by ignored on Capitol Hill.

Under Republican congressional leadership, the amount of federal funds earmarked has nearly tripled since 1994, reaching $67.1 billion in fiscal 2006, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The new rules House Democrats plan to adopt would mandate disclosure of the authors of earmarks and more complete explanations of what the earmarks will fund -- measures reformers have demanded for years.

House Democrats also plan to pass new bans on gifts and meals from lobbyists, and a prohibition on the use of corporate jets by House members.

Senate Democrats will soon draw up their own rules, but a spokesman for incoming Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would not discuss them.

The House reform package -- which is among a list of initiatives Democrats promised to enact in their first days in power -- comes after Republicans lost control of Congress amid ethics scandals that led to the resignations of four GOP House members since September 2005.

It drew praise from a number of reform advocates, including Fred Wertheimer, president of the watchdog group Democracy 21. Wertheimer called the ethics package “important progress in changing the way business is done in Congress.”

But the plan neither settled the debate over earmarking nor allowed Democrats to claim control of the reform agenda without a challenge.

Though House Democratic leaders are seeking to dramatically increase transparency in the earmarking process, they would not mandate that information about who inserts an earmark be posted in a place the public can easily access it, such as the Internet.

“I want more,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog that tracks congressional spending.

Democrats also do not plan to make it easier to remove earmarks when legislation comes to the full House for a vote.

Earmarks are often included in the conference reports that are drawn up by senior lawmakers from the House and Senate to settle differences between versions of legislation passed by the two chambers. These reports cannot be amended on the floor.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has been complaining about earmarking for years, said he was particularly disappointed that lawmakers like him would often be unable to offer amendments that would strip out objectionable earmarks.

“I would have liked to see a requirement that earmarks be in the legislative text rather than in a conference committee report,” Flake said. “When they are in a conference committee report, it’s far more likely that they will end up in the middle in the night.”

Democrats nonetheless were quick to label the expected adoption as historic.

“This is the most significant package that has ever passed the Congress,” noted Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), a longtime reform advocate.

But if Democrats were able to outmaneuver Republicans on ethics in the fall congressional campaign, they now could face a second showdown with the White House.

Bush has only occasionally criticized the proliferation of earmarking. And since taking office, he has never vetoed an appropriations bill, even as the number of earmarks in the spending measures more than doubled to about 13,000.

On Wednesday morning, however, the president made earmarks the focus of his public remarks as he outlined areas where he said he could work with the new Congress.

“People want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to get billions of dollars directed to projects, many of them pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by the Congress,” Bush said just a few hours before Democrats announced their plans.

Casting himself as the reformer, Bush called on Congress to stop putting earmarks in conference reports and to disclose even more information about why earmarks are being sought.

And he reiterated calls he has made in the past for a version of the line-item veto, which Bush has said would help restrain spending by allowing him to strip out wasteful earmarks.

That suggestion was immediately rejected by incoming House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who gave a hint of how the battle over reform may turn into a showdown over congressional authority.

“The president would like to say to the United States: Only the president can add investments in communities, so Congress has to come hat in hand to the president,” Hoyer said. “That would substantially skew the relationship and undermine the independence of the Congress of the United States.”

noam.levey@latimes.com

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Times staff writer Nicole Gaouette and researcher Robin Cochran contributed to this report.

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Federal funds for pet projectsHouse Democrats said they would require greater disclosure of theearmarking of federal funds for special projects. President Bush alsocalled for limits on earmarking funds, which are often buried inappropriations bills. The growth of earmarks, for fiscal years:

*--* Value of earmarks Number of earmarks (billions) 2006 $67,061 13,012 2005 $48,149 15,899 2004 $46,289 14,052 2002 $42,848 10,601 2000 $32,959 6,085 1998 $27,674 4,219 1996 $20,336 3,052 1994 $24,468 4,174

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Sources: Congressional Research Service, Taxpayers for Common Sense,Associated Press