By Megan Scully, CongressDaily
© National Journal Group Inc.
Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006

When Rep. Rodney Alexander switched parties in 2004, GOP leaders rewarded the Louisiana Republican with a coveted seat on the House Appropriations Committee, a political coup for a Washington newbie and an unexpected blessing for his constituents.

Even as a self-described "new kid on the block," Alexander has leveraged his seat on the exclusive panel to secure millions of dollars for critical projects in impoverished northeastern Louisiana, a partially rural area ranked the ninth-poorest congressional district in the country.

But the power of the purse wielded by Alexander and other appropriators might be hamstrung somewhat in the coming months, as lawmakers plan significant changes to the earmark process, such as increasing transparency and debate, as well as limiting the number of line items in the federal government's voluminous spending bills.

With nearly a quarter percent of his constituents living below the poverty line, Alexander, who narrowly won his seat in 2002 as a Democrat, recognizes that securing good jobs for his district is a big priority.

	Alexander added three $1 million line items vaguely identified as "chem/bio resistant hydration on the move."

"Anything we can do to stimulate the interest in economic activity in our area, then I'm all for that," he said in an interview this week.

He succeeded in the FY06 Defense appropriations conference report by making sure it included three $1 million line items vaguely identified as "chem/bio resistant hydration on the move."

This should translate into $3 million to replace "outdated canteens" with CamelBak water packs, Alexander noted in a news release intended for his constituents. In the last several years, Congress has earmarked "hydration on the move" money, which has resulted in big military orders for CamelBak, a soldier favorite and a staple of U.S. troops deployed around the world.

Many of those backpacks are assembled at a Winnsboro, La., sewing operation whose small but skilled workforce was on the brink of layoffs before CamelBak came to town in 2004.

"You take a little case like Winnsboro, 85 jobs [are] as important there as 1,000 jobs in a city of 100,000," said Alexander, who emphasized that he and other lawmakers successfully pushed for CamelBak money years before the California-based CamelBak Products firm set up shop in Winnsboro.

Still, the money fits the classic definition of an earmark, essentially a line item not requested by the administration but added by Congress and tucked inside the conference report accompanying a spending bill.

The funding for the water packs -- added to three separate operations and maintenance accounts -- is only a small piece of the estimated $11.1 billion in pork that the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense found in this year's Defense bill. But it is illustrative of how critically important line items have become for lawmakers, most of whom believe voters want them to use their congressional powers to boost their districts' economies.

"If you use economic development as justification, what can you not justify?" said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., an aggressive anti-pork legislator who says he last requested an earmark in the FY03 Defense appropriations bill. "No member of Congress from any party should have that power [to] name a pot of money and earmark it for my district, my friends, my associates," he later added.

While Flake said the three CamelBak line items likely have more merit than many of the special-interest earmarks in the appropriations conference report, he argued that every item of congressionally added spending should be included in the actual bill and considered during floor debate -- the central element of an overhaul package backed by the Arizona Republican.

A former House Appropriations Committee aide cautioned that doing so would make the legislative process more cumbersome.

"The fact of the matter is it's in the committee report, you can see it. It's there, so what are you trying to achieve?" the former aide said. "You'd rapidly find yourself in a situation, I think, where the system becomes too hog-tied and inflexible."

But perhaps that's precisely Flake's point.

Trying to stuff 15,000 earmarks in the appropriations bills would be too unwieldy," he said. "I don't suspect there would be that many earmarks if the member had to defend [a] Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earmark on the floor of the House."

A lobbyist for CamelBak and other several other firms argued that the earmark system enables Congress to provide money for critical items often overlooked in the administration's budget request.

"I think the system isn't perfect, but it works pretty well and nobody made agencies omniscient," Marshall Brachman said. "Congressional oversight and direction on agency policy is appropriate and necessary."

Flake doesn't disagree, but he believes most of the earmarks are unnecessary items. "When you count the number of those [line items] where we actually know better [than the administration] and there's no political purpose, it's sufficiently small," he said.

Indeed, if extensive earmark reforms succeed in both chambers, it might make a seat on appropriations far less attractive for members -- a "good thing," according to Flake, who said an appropriations committee assignment is his "worst fear."

When asked, Alexander also conceded that scaling back the power of appropriators to direct dollars to their districts might "weaken the desire for that committee some." But he said he recognizes the need for change.

"I understand that we probably need to do something to make it less inviting for someone to abuse the system," Alexander said. "At the same time, I don't want to take away from anybody the privilege we have to work for the people we represent."

Need A Reprint Of This Article?
National Journal Group offers both print and electronic reprint services, as well as permissions for academic use, photocopying and republication. Click here to order, or call us at 877-394-7350.