Yesterday, House Democrats put an opening bid on the table in the political game of banning earmarks -- all for-profit corporate earmarks would not be allowed in the budget appropriations bills this year (or possibly longer). Today, House Republicans raised the stakes by proposing a ban on all earmarks (although only specifically for "this year"), and not just the ones directed towards for-profit entities.

Now, I do realize that this is all mostly somewhat-symbolic political gamesmanship on an obscure parliamentary process. I say symbolic because even if earmarks were indeed banned in both houses, it would not stop the practice of awarding federal money to individual causes on a microscopic level, it would instead merely force such carve-outs through the regular budgeting process. If you wanted some federal bucks for a project in your district, you'd have to get it into the appropriations bill while it was in committee, or openly on the floor, as an amendment. Nothing would bar the practice of doing so, but it would change the process of how it would happen -- and, by doing so, make it much harder to achieve.

Earmarks used to be used relatively sparingly. But after Newt Gingrich stormed the House, and Republicans took over the Senate, the use of earmarks exploded. Scott Lilly points this out in today's Huffington Post, in detail:

In the years leading up to their seizure of power in 1994 it seemed that Republicans care about eliminating pork more than almost anything. But after the election was a different story. Not only did they not make good on their promise to banish earmarking they literally sent the process through the roof. Government programs that had never previously contained earmarks became saturated with them. Programs containing only a few earmarks became almost nothing but earmarks. The Labor-Health, Human Services and Education bill went from having no earmarks in 1994 to $33 million in earmarks in 1996, nearly a $100 million in 1998, half a billion in 2000 and more than $1 billion in 2002.

A report that I prepared along with others on the Appropriations minority staff in the fall of 2003 described how dramatically the practice had careened out of control. It indicated, fore [sic] instance that the number of earmarks in Defense Operation and Maintenance account had swelled from 33 before the Republican takeover to 232 by 2004. In Defense Research and Development the number of earmarks grew from 219 to 1299. This was happening in nearly every appropriation bill and it wasn't just happening in Appropriations.

The report drew only snickers from Republicans who were committed to conquering new heights in the realm of earmarks. Perhaps the pinnacle was reached with the passage of the 2005 highway bill. Instead of containing 487 earmarks -- the number that sparked the all night protest by Republicans on the 1991 highway legislation -- the bill contained 6,371 earmarks controlling the expenditure of $23 billion in federal money. As a report I did for the Center for American Progress indicated, the bill not only contained more earmarks than any highway bill in history it contained more than all highway bills combined.

Democrats, since regaining control, have changed the rules so that earmarks must be admitted to publicly. Previously, earmarks used to magically appear paper-clipped to a bill in the middle of the night, to be voted on -- even if nobody would own up to authoring them. You read that right -- congresscritters were so embarrassed by what they were trying to get written into law that they refused to admit they had written them. Since then, any earmark must be "signed" by a member of Congress, and posted online for all to see -- which was a big step in the right direction, but only a first step.

Lest I be accused of trying to paint this as a partisan issue, though, allow me to say that both parties have been equally complicit in this porkfest. The unwritten rule of decorum was "everybody does it," and therefore neither party would unilaterally (for instance) reject all the other party's earmarks en masse. This led to a situation of "mutually-assured destruction" (younger readers, see: The Cold War), where neither party could make earmarks a campaign issue, since everyone's hands were equally dirty. People like Senator John McCain who tried to make political hay out of the issue were seen as cranks -- even by their own party -- since everyone knew that a total ban on earmarks (as McCain called for) would never happen.

But this year, the budget is going to be a central issue on the campaign trail. So House Democrats led off with a unilateral ban on all for-profit earmarks. House Republicans reacted by raising the stakes to a complete ban of all earmarks.

This may all be political theater, however, unless the Senate gets into the bidding game. Because if the Senate ignores the House's actions, then earmarks will indeed be included in the Senate's version of the budget bills. And, unless the House holds firm in conference committee with the Senate, it is likely that most will make it into the final budget. It can also be chalked up as political theater if you are more cynical, because the actual appropriations bills will likely not be voted on before the election this November. They're supposed to all be passed by the first of October, but Congress never seems to get their homework in on time on this particular issue, and there's no reason to think they'll suddenly start in the midst of a contentious election season. Meaning that any "pledges" to "ban" earmarks "this year" are about as firm as Jell-o.

Still, I say this is a good political bidding war, for both sides to take part in. No word yet from House Democrats, but they will assumably soon agree to the total ban the House Republicans are now proposing, since they are obviously want to be seen as earmark-cutters. And House Democrats could up the ante even further by proposing a permanent change to the rules to ban earmarks forever. Republicans, in this environment, would likely quickly agree to the idea, lest they be seen as hypocrites on the issue.

The harder part will be what happens afterward. If Senate Republicans decide to get on board (led by McCain, no doubt), then Senate Democrats would be backed into the corner of being the only defenders of a particularly odious practice. Senate Democrats, however, have the same chance of getting out in front of the issue here, should they choose to quickly follow the House.

But it may not get that far. In a seemingly-bizarre political realignment, Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats may stand firm against their House counterparts, and resist the urge to jump on board the ban. The Senate-versus-House dynamic isn't spoken of much, outside the Beltway, but it can get as contentious as the Democrats-versus-Republicans dynamic is everywhere else, at times. This would lead (if the House held firm) to a particularly ugly budget battle this year (after the elections, most likely, as I said). Or, perhaps more accurately, a particularly ugly facet to what will undoubtedly be an already ugly budget battle this year.

But if one party or the other in the Senate decides to sign on to the same pledge being sworn to over in the House, it would force the other party to actually defend the earmark process as it exists. But "earmarks" and "pork" aren't precisely the same things. One is (barely) defensible, the other simply is not.

Say you live in Podunk County. Your county produces (let's say) 97 percent of all the glue that goes on the backs of postage stamps. So someone got the bright idea of building a museum to the history of postage stamp glue (if you think this is a far-fetched example, you should take a look at what actually does make it into the budget sometime), and the even dandier idea to graciously allow the federal government to foot the bill. Podunk's House member and one of the senators for the state get behind the project, and it appears on page 482 of the bill which funds highway construction (note that no actual rational link between purpose of the bill and the earmark is necessary).

But there are two ways for this to happen. The first is that the committees which write the highway bill agree to add the specific pork money for the Podunk Heights Postage Stamp Glue Museum, and vote on it. The other is to have it suddenly appear, attached with the notorious paper clip, to page 482 of the bill.

In the first instance, the subject of whether (1) the museum is a good idea, and (2) shelling out federal money to build it is acceptable are both actually discussed and voted on. It's pork, no doubt about it. Nothing more than bringing home the legislative bacon, as usual. But it is aboveboard. In the second instance, it is an earmark -- by its very nature designed as an end-run around normal budgetary procedures.

In other words, even with a total ban on earmarks, it is still quite possible for the representative and the senator to attend groundbreaking ceremonies on the museum next spring -- as long as they can convince others in Congress that it's a good idea for federal tax dollars to foot the bill. Otherwise, Podunk County will just have to come up with their own money to pay for it. But nothing is stopping them from making the attempt at getting the project into the federal budget.

In other words, a ban on earmarks is not a ban on pork. They don't equate. Which is why, as I said at the beginning, this is mostly political posturing and symbolism. But it is good politics. Which both parties in the House have already figured out. And, so far, both parties seem to have chalked up a tie on the issue so far. Democrats started the process, Republicans pushed it even further, but Democrats will likely catch up.

But over in the Senate, the issue is ripe for one party to champion. The problem is that senators (some of them -- from both parties) are going to give up their earmarks when they are pried from their "cold dead hands" (as it were), and not one minute before. The effort in the Senate to ban earmarks may even be (gasp!) begun as a bipartisan effort between folks willing to go along with John McCain from either side of the aisle (likely very junior senators, who haven't been there long enough to have an outrageous sense of entitlement about such things, yet).

So, even though the whole issue is somewhat symbolic, it'll be interesting to watch it all play out. It'll be spun as much more enormous of an impact on the budget than it is in reality (earmarks do not equal pork, remember, and the total level of earmarks is still a fraction of the actual federal budget), but even with the spin, banning all earmarks is the right thing to do -- both politically and in reality. Which is why it has already become a truly bipartisan issue in the House, on the verge of election season -- because both parties in the House realized the political potency the issue could have this year.

-- Chris Weigant

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