January 16, 2007: The Senate Broadens Its Definition of "Earmark"

The Senate's Ethics Reform bill grew some teeth as three amendments passed with nearly unanimous support.  DeMint's amendment, which broadens the definition of "earmark" passed 98-0 after a Durbin second degree amendment to DeMint's amendment passed by the same count.  DeMint's language broadened the earmark definition to include conference report language and appropriations to federal entities.  Durbin's amendment extended DeMint's definition to include targeted tax breaks.  Durbin's amendment also ensured that earmarks and their sponsors would be disclosed before a bill was debated on the floor of the Senate.  A Reid amendment requiring senators to pay the full charter fare on corporate flights (instead of the equivalent first-class fare) met a cloture motion 95-2.  Elsewhere, Byrd spoke in defense of earmarks but voted for the broadened definitions...Feinstein and Specter addressed the stink of forced resignations in the Justice Department...



[19:15]
Senate's done for the day.


[18:45]
The cloture motion on the Reid Amendment #4, concerning gift and travel bans, has passed 95-2.  Successful passage of the cloture motion means that second-degree amendments must be germane, and if they are not germane must garner 60 votes for passage.  Most notably the amendment requires senators to pay the full charter fare for corporate flights instead of the first-class equivalent fare senators are currently paying.


[18:15]
The DeMint Amendment passes 98-0.


[17:55]
The Durbin Amendment passes 98-0.


[17:43]
The Senate is voting on the Durbin Amendment, which amends the DeMint earmark definition amendment.  The Durbin Amendment will pass, and it appears that the DeMint amendment will pass in the next vote after this.


[16:53]
Hear me now, everybody!  It's Robert Byrd (WV) on in defense of earmarks.  Earmarks are not just in appropriations bills.  Most people do not understand the purpose of earmarks.  Hear me now!  Earmarks can be found in the President's budget request.  There is no universal standard that defines what an earmark is.  The determination of what an earmark is, where it rightfully belongs under the constitution, hear me everyone, east west south and north, hear me, there is nothing inherently wrong with an earmark.  It is an explicit direction from Congress, the people's elected representatives, about how Congress should spend the people's money.  I say again, it is an explicit direction, I'm talking about earmarks, about how the federal government should spend YOUR money.  Dispute me if you like, challenge me if you like, consult the Constitution. Article I.  The power of the purse, the power of the purse!

Our duty is to prevent imprudent expenditures.  We have an obligation to guard against the corruption of any public official who would sell their soul.  But let no person suggest that the Congress errs in using earmarks to designate how the people's money should be spent.  Let me say that again.  Errrrsss, E-r-r-s.  Your money, your money, hear me, the people's money.  The bureaucrats do not know our communities, they do not see what we see.

Time runs out.  He asks how much time remains.  The majority's time is out.  Senator Byrd asks if he may have as much time as he requires.  On the other side, Saxby Chambliss (GA) is happy to yield ten minutes.  It's not a perfect process, but each earmark must path both houses, votes be made public, and the representatives are held accountable.  I say to my colleagues that we're treading on some dangerous constitutional ground with this bombast against earmarks.  The misguided cries to do away with earmarks have const'l consequences about who controls the power of the purse.  The President is even using the political environment to ask for a line item veto, help me God.  In this rush (pointing) this headlong rush we should remember why deficits have soared to unprecedented levels.  The President has not vetoed a single spending bill, or a single revenue bill.  What has wrought this circumstance (pointing out with both arms) are the president's reckless fiscal policies.

He lists examples of earmarks.  The Human Genome Project.  Is that wasteful spending?  Unmanned aerial vehicles (Predator drones).  Is that wasteful spending?  No.  He asks for two add'l minutes.  But, he acknowledges, the level of money spent under earmarking has tripled in recent years.  This is why Byrd has called for a one-year earmark moratorium and increased transparency.  Let's disclose the sponsors.  The taxpayers ought to know.  But it is essential to make sure these spending bills remain in the power of the Congress.


[16:17]
Susan Collins (ME) and Joe Lieberman (CT) have spoken on behalf of an amendment they've co-sponsored with Barack Obama (IL) and John McCain (AZ).  Their amendment would establish an Office of Public Integrity that would sit outside the Congress and serve as an oversight body concerning Congressional ethics issues.  It would be a neutral, non-partisan, third-party body.  The idea has many lawmakers uneasy with worries that they will be signing away too much power, i.e. the power to self-police, if they leave ethics enforcement to a third party.  According to Lieberman, the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that the amendment would not be german post-cloture and would therefore need sixty votes for passage.  As such, it looks like this amendment is dead in the water, and as Collins suggested, might not even come to a vote.  Note, this is one of the reasons why Reid wants to have a cloture vote on the Ethics bill and the "substitute" bill ASAP.  Once a cloture motion passes, debate is limited and amendments that are not germane need sixty votes to pass.


[13:05]
Dianne Feinstein (CA) is speaking about the Justice Department having asked 5-10 U.S. attorneys to resign, without cause, by the end of this month.  In one case Feinstein mentioned, a U.S. attorney in Arkansas was asked to resign and the Justice Department appointed a Republican operative in his place.  This Republican operative, last name Griffin, was supposedly Bush's head of opposition campaign research.

It used to be that federal district judges would appoint, and the Senate would confirm, every new U.S. attorney.  But under that majestic piece of legislation known as the Patriot Act, the Justice Department became able to appoint interim U.S. attorneys to fill "vacated" positions for the duration of a president's term.

Even more interesting, it seems that one of the U.S. attorneys being forced out is in San Diego, name of Carol Lam, who is heading the Duke Cunningham case.  Feinstein says there is no apparent reason why Lam should have to resign.  Further, Feinstein observes that the FBI is now prioritizing political corruption cases over violent crime cases.  She is concerned that the Justice Department is asking U.S. attorneys to resign just as political corruption cases will become the focus of the Justice Department.

Feinstein is introducing a bill that would amend the Patriot Act and require that federal district judges appoint interim U.S. attorneys, thus removing that power from the hands of the Justice Department, and changing the law back to the way it used to be.

Specter mentioned something about this stink in the Justice Department earlier today but he was vague and I didn't know what he was talking about.


[12:34]
According to Majority Leader Reid, the Durbin Amendment to DeMint's earmark definition amendment is the result of cooperation between Durbin and DeMint.  
Under the Durbin Amendment, the DeMint amendment's definition of "earmark" will be extended further to include "targeted tax credits," meaning bill language that targets a tax break to a group or entity, and which the Democrats wanted to make sure would be included in the definition of earmark because a tax break is the same thing as a spending appropriation.

Further, the Durbin amendment will switch the earmark disclosure reporting time from disclosure after floor debate to disclosure before floor debate.  The Dems were adamant about requiring earmark disclosure before the bill was voted on.  Reid describes the potential DeMint amendment, as amended by the Durbin amendment, as representing the best work of both parties.  If the DeMint amendment passes, as amended, the Senate will have scored a major bipartisan coup on its own behalf.


[11:15]
Chuck Grassley (IA) is back for the fifth or sixth time in the last six working days saying how the Democrat proposal (originating in the House) to lift the prohibition on government negotiation of prescription drug prices isn't going to do anybody any good.


[10:51]
Ron Wyden (OR) has been speaking at length during this period of morning business on the topic of fixing health care in America.  He presents a bill that will do just that, called the Healthy Americans Act.  It offers to every American the same type of health plan that members of Congress have.  It is a private plan.  I am not up to speed on what this health plan offers.  I would suggest checking Senator Wyden's site.  There is also information at Stand Tall For America.


[10:03]
Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) announced that the Senate will vote on at least three amendments later this afternoon.  They are DeMint Amendment #11, which defines earmarks broadly, so as to include appropriations to federal entities and language inserted into bills at the last minute (i.e. in conference reports); a Durbin second degree amendment, which would amend the DeMint amendment; and Reid's amendment on the gift and travel bans, which includes a change in the rate senators must pay when they fly corporate charter planes.

Further, Reid stated that the Senate would finish the Ethics Reform bill this week, even going into the weekend if necessary.  Votes will be limited to fifteen minutes with a five-minute grace period.  The only snag on the bill will be if a cloture motion for the bill does not pass.  At that point, leadership will have to reassess what it will do with the bill.  No more first-degree amendments can be filed after 10:30 this morning.


[10:00]
The Senate opened at 10:00 est. As the morning began, the Senate's ethics bill had a new name. What was "The Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007" is now simply "The Ethics Reform Bill."