Republicans teetering over earmarks

As Senate Republicans turned up the volume Thursday in their campaign for belt-tightening on Capitol Hill, they declared war on a $1.1-trillion bill that would avert a looming government shutdown this weekend. But the maneuver put them in the awkward position of warring with themselves.

Or perhaps, they would argue, their former selves.

Before last month’s game-changing election, many leading Republicans counted themselves among Congress’ most successful sponsors of pet projects. But with the GOP now promising a new fiscal conservatism, many Republican senators and a few Democrats have vowed to end the practice of earmarking money for roads, bridges and research in their home districts.

Still, that didn’t stop the senators from putting billions in earmarks in the 2011 spending bill.

The situation has some GOP senators vowing to vote against the money they personally requested. Some have said they wish they had removed the requests before the massive spending bill was released this week, arguing they made the requests before they agreed to the ban.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) chose to criticize the 1,900-page bill on largely procedural grounds. He requested $112 million in earmarks, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

“Just a few weeks after the voters told us they don’t want us rushing major pieces of complicated, costly, far-reaching legislation through Congress, we get this,” McConnell said Thursday. “They want us to ram this gigantic, trillion-dollar bill through Congress — and they’re using the Christmas break as an inducement to get us to vote for it.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) fired back. “You can’t have it both ways,” Reid said. “You can all look it up in the dictionary yourself, but I’ll bet if you went to ‘H’ in the dictionary and found hypocrite, under that would be people who ask for earmarks [and] vote against them.”

Earmarks have generated controversy over the years because of projects such as Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere” and a cowgirl hall of fame in Texas. They’ve become a potent symbol of alleged government waste at a time when voters say they want lawmakers to focus on deficit reduction.

The debate over the spending bill is likely to lock up all other business in the Senate in the coming days and could derail lawmakers’ hopes to wrap up work before the holidays.

The omnibus spending bill is Senate Democrats’ 11th-hour attempt to fund the government through the next fiscal year. It’s also the final vehicle for sending money back to lawmakers’ districts before Congress adjourns.

But as Republicans anticipate their increased numbers next year, they’ve resisted casting votes on major legislation that would advance Democratic priorities.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has said he is hoping to “run out the clock” on the Democrats’ agenda. DeMint said he would ask Senate clerks to read the bill aloud, a procedural formality senators routinely dismiss that could eat up 50 hours of floor time.

McConnell on Thursday introduced the Republican solution to keeping the government running after Saturday, when funding expires. He proposed a one-page resolution that would continue funding at current levels through Feb. 18.

Among the earmarks singled out by the watchdog group Council for Citizens Against Government Waste were $6 million for the Mississippi Polymer Institute at the University of Southern Mississippi, requested by Republican Sens. Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran, both of Mississippi, and $300,000 for a solar lighting project in Alexandria, Va., sought by Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.).

The bill also includes $6.5 million for a project in downtown Los Angeles to connect light-rail lines and help pay for engineering for the subway extension to the city’s Westside; $5 million for repairs to Alcatraz, the notorious prison turned tourist attraction; and $750,000 for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail.

A smaller bill without earmarks has already passed the House, although House Democrats are expected to welcome the additional funding for home state projects. The Senate is not expected to vote on the bill before Saturday, and it is not clear whether Reid has the 60 votes necessary to pass it.

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

Richard Simon and Lisa Mascaro in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.