DeMint's earmark tenacity

Shedding light on how members of Congress spend taxpayer money is the common-sense aim of earmark reform. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., is advancing that worthy cause again this week by shedding light on how some prominent members of the Senate are blocking the attainment of that goal.

Sen. DeMint has worked long and hard to end the inherently flawed practice of allowing the addition of "earmark" projects to appropriations bills during the conference-committee process. That tactic has long let legislators pile on the pork in virtual anonymity. Ending that shadow spending would reduce waste by increasing scrutiny. It also would reduce the temptation to feather the nests of special interests.

Sen. DeMint and bipartisan partners finally succeeded last month in the push for the Senate to make earmark spending far more transparent, with an ethics bill provision mandating disclosure of which senators back which earmarks — and certification that they have no financial interest in the appropriations.

Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., now insists that the Senate-House conference committee be given a chance to dilute, or even eliminate, that overdue earmark rule as the panel works out differences in the two chambers' ethics bills.

Sen. DeMint fairly argues that the Senate reform shouldn't be vulnerable to such alterations by House conferees. He has vowed to prevent the Senate bill from reaching conference (that step requires unanimous consent, including his) unless one of his two conditions are met: 1) the Senate sticks to its earmark-reform promise by passing it as a separate rule for itself, or 2) the leadership gives him assurances that the conference committee won't gut the needed spending transparency that reform would achieve.

Sen. DeMint made that stand anew on the Senate floor Thursday, targeting a system that he said allows members of Congress "to direct federal tax dollars to the special interest of their choosing with little or no accountability."

Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has charged that Sen. DeMint's blocking attempt is a "guise" that could kill the entire ethics reform bill, including needed lobbying reform.

Sen. DeMint's convincing response: "The other side wants to change the way people outside of Congress behave but they completely oppose changing anything on earmarks because that limits their own power and it forces them to be accountable. That's the real guise here."

He also warned: "Ethics reform is not complete without earmark reform. Americans know that and that's why they want us to get this right."

So why can't the Democratic leadership, which promised both lobbying and earmark reform while winning control of Congress in last year's elections, deliver both?

As for Sen. Reid's threat to cancel the August recess if Sen. DeMint refuses to yield on the earmarks issue, Sen. DeMint welcomed that possibility, explaining: "From my perspective, cancelling the August break to debate earmark reform would not be a bad thing. We need to debate this because there are many here in the Senate who still don't get it. They still don't understand that Americans are sick and tired of business as usual in Washington."

Then he re-issued his reasonable offer: "If for some reason they believe these rules need technical changes, then they should tell us what they are so can work them out in the open — not behind closed doors."

By forcing this issue, Sen. DeMint has put the final, decisive push for effective earmark reform out in the open, where it — like congressional spending decisions — belongs.