GOP Freshmen Keep Pork on Reelection Menu

Two years ago, when Michael Patrick Flanagan was campaigning to unseat House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, the upstart Illinois Republican derided Rostenkowski’s ability to deliver public works projects, housing subsidies and other federal goodies for Chicago.

Flanagan practically bragged that he would bring home less federal largess. “Pork,” he declared, “has not served this district well.”

Now, facing his constituents in one of the toughest House reelection fights in the country, Flanagan is touting his efforts to bring federal money to Chicago for transit renovations, buses and repairing the crumbling waterfront of Lake Michigan. “These are good projects, not pork,” he insisted in an announcement trumpeting the transit aid.

Flanagan is one of dozens of rambunctious Republican freshmen who rode to Washington in 1994 on a wave of anti-establishment fervor, toppling Democratic incumbents like Rostenkowski with promises to scale back government and transform the way Congress does business.

Now that they are facing their first run for reelection, many freshmen are campaigning the old-fashioned way: by bringing home the bacon and bragging about it.

Republican leaders are doing what they can to help. Spending bills now working their way through the House are laced with projects in the districts of vulnerable freshmen. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) recently circulated a memo urging the Appropriations Committee, in drafting its money bills, to take account of the political impact on Republican incumbents.

“Some of these guys have things important to their districts,” said a top House GOP leadership aide. “We’re going to do everything we can to be helpful.”

All this is a pointed reminder that, although it is tempting to view the 1996 congressional elections as a referendum on the Republican “revolution” and on big ideas about the size and scope of government, the outcome of many House races also will be affected--as they always have been--by incumbents’ records on narrow, parochial issues.

*

That’s why Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) touts his role in snaring $210 million for restoring the Everglades. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), in a newsletter to constituents, brags about getting money for a series of dikes to prevent floods in his district. Rep. Michael P. Forbes (R-N.Y.) mentions in his official biography that he got $500,000 to buy vans for transporting senior citizens and the mentally retarded in his district-- money, he hastens to add, that was transferred from another, wasteful project on Long Island.

It is hardly unprecedented to find lawmakers scrambling for federal aid for their districts and party leaders trying to help vulnerable incumbents. Democrats did it with abandon when they controlled Congress. One might even argue that securing federal money for local projects is an integral part of representing constituent interests.

But this time-honored process has raised eyebrows when freshman Republicans take part, because so many of them came to Washington committed to rooting out wasteful spending and challenging the back-scratching, log-rolling ways of Washington.

“It’s not a mortal sin. It’s a fact of life,” said Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “But in some cases it’s enough to give hypocrisy a bad name.”

Freshmen brush off any suggestion of hypocrisy. Flanagan’s spokesman, for example, said there is a world of difference between some of the projects Rostenkowski delivered--such as federal subsidies for apartments that critics said served few needy people--and the kind of aid Flanagan is supporting. He has, for example, helped to secure $25 million for transit improvements in this year’s transportation appropriations bill and to win funding for Chicago’s waterfront repairs--a project endorsed by Gingrich.

“Not pork,” said Bob Manewith, Flanagan’s press secretary. “This is essential infrastructure renovation and rehabilitation.”

It’s not surprising that Flanagan would take such steps to strengthen his political position. He is, after all, the “accidental congressman” who won a district that has long been held by a Democrat but that went GOP largely because Rostenkowski was under indictment. But even Republican freshmen in safe districts are catering to local appetites.

Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), president of last year’s freshman class and holder of a relatively secure congressional seat, is trying to nail down funding for a flood-control project in this year’s energy and water spending bill. He says such efforts are not inconsistent with his class’ interest in changing the direction of government.

*

“We have dramatically changed the way we do business, but that doesn’t mean all federal spending and all programs cease,” Wicker said. “If the farmers in Calhoun City are losing land because of flooding and the Corps of Engineers can rectify it, I’m duty-bound to get an appropriation.”

But an “essential investment” to one congressman is often pork to another. Witness last year’s effort by Wicker and other Mississippi Republicans to win approval of a provision transferring 1,200 acres of National Aeronautics and Space Administration property in Wicker’s district, plus $10 million in cold cash, from the federal government to the state of Mississippi.

Mississippi Republicans argued that the property, which was supposed to have been used for a series of federal projects that were all eventually canceled, was an appropriate compensation to a state and community that had spent considerable money over the years to accommodate federal activities that never took place.

*

But a fellow Republican criticized the project when it was slipped into a bill that was supposed to cut government spending, which President Clinton eventually vetoed. “When the president says there is pork-barrel spending in the bill, I am sorry to say that I also have reached that conclusion,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

To be sure, freshmen are citing their role in the GOP’s broader efforts to turn the country in a more conservative direction. But local initiatives, with their direct impact on local economies, may be as important to some Republicans’ reelection as their record on Medicare, the 1994 “contract with America” campaign manifesto and other pillars of the GOP national agenda.

“It’s the local issues that constituents look at when they decide whether or not to send you back to Congress,” said Mike Scanlon, spokesman for freshman Rep. Frederick K. Heineman (R-N.C.).

Indeed, Heineman has landed federal funding for a local project so important to the district that he and his opponent--former Democratic Rep. David Price, whom Heineman unseated--have been squabbling over who should get credit for it. At issue is a big Environmental Protection Agency research facility to be built in Research Triangle Park. Price said he laid the groundwork for the project while he was in the House, securing three years’ worth of funding for planning and design work. But Heineman says he delivered the goods.

“Nothing ever got done until Heineman came to Congress,” Scanlon said.

Price said Heineman was trying to make up for the flak he caught for past votes supporting cuts in the EPA budget and for belittling Price’s own efforts on behalf of the district in the 1994 campaign. “I think he’s desperate to cover his tracks,” Price said.

Rep. Frank Riggs (R-Windsor), who is locked in a tough reelection fight that is being watched closely by both parties, claims credit for delivering a laundry list of local projects, thanks to his position on the Appropriations Committee. Most recently, he persuaded the committee to include $32 million for a new veterans hospital in his California district, the second installment of a project for which he secured $25 million last year.

*

Riggs is now pushing for federal aid to widen Highway 101 north of San Francisco. He spotlighted that initiative during a recent visit by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), who joined Riggs for a helicopter tour of the district. Shuster even suggested that the project would be at risk if Riggs were not reelected.

“We can still balance the budget while providing for the important needs of Northern California and other congressional districts,” said Beau Phillips, Riggs’ press secretary. “The spigot is not being turned off. It’s being turned to the point that we can balance the budget.”