Keep Politics Kosher
House Republicans need a low-pork diet.
BY JOHN BOEHNER
Tuesday, January 17, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
WASHINGTON--The Republican agenda is at risk because of a growing perception that Congress is for sale. The guilty plea of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham for bribery, the guilty pleas of scam artists Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, and rumors of future indictments, have all cast a pall over the public perception of the House of Representatives and corroded the public trust in our collective commitment to principle.
We can't allow this to happen. Republicans need to prove to voters that our policies come directly from our principles. To rebuild trust in the institution and our commitment to governing, we need to recognize that most of the current ethical problems arise from one basic fact: Government is too big and controls too much money. If you want to dismantle the culture that produced an Abramoff or a Scanlon, you need to reform how Congress exerts power.
We must start by addressing the growing practice of unauthorized earmarks--language in spending bills that directs federal dollars to private entities for projects that are not tied to an existing federal program or purpose. The public knows the practice better by a different name--pork-barreling. Unauthorized earmarks squander taxpayer dollars and lack transparency. They feed public cynicism. They've been a driving force in the ongoing growth of our already gargantuan federal government, and a major factor in government's increasing detachment from the priorities of individual Americans. Earmarks have also fueled the growth of the lobbying industry. Entire firms have been built around the practice. As more entities circumvent the normal competitive process, confidence in the system erodes, encouraging others to take the same shortcuts.
Many pork-barrel provisions are inserted into legislation at the last minute to ensure passage, and relatively few members get a chance to see them before actually voting. My Republican colleague, Jeff Flake of Arizona, has bold ideas to solve this problem. He proposes that the earmarking process be transparent: All earmarks should be included in the actual text of legislation, so members can see them before they vote. He believes, as I do, that this would make it much harder to adopt earmarks that can't be substantively justified, while also allowing earmarks that are legitimate. I think Mr. Flake is off to a strong start, and I support his efforts.
I'd like to go even further, though. Last week, in a letter to David Dreier, the House Rules Committee chairman and the speaker's point man on lobbying reform, I called for a ban on earmarks that serve lobbying interests at the expense of the public interest. We need to establish some clear standards by which worthy projects can be distinguished from worthless pork, so that pork projects can be halted in their tracks as soon as they are identified. For example, earmarks should meet the specific purpose of the authorizing statute. They should not give a private entity a competitive edge unless it is in the immediate national security interest of the country. They should not be a substitute for state and local fiscal responsibility. They should be used sparingly, and ideally, they should be a one-time appropriation for a specific national need.
There's something else needed, however, and that is unflagging support for earmark reform from the highest echelons of our conference. When I first ran for Congress in 1990, I told the people of our congressional district that if they wanted someone to go to Washington to raid the federal Treasury on their behalf, they should probably vote for someone else. A decade and a half later, my position hasn't changed.
My self-imposed "pork-free diet" has, to this point, been limited to a personal decision. For 15 years, I've abstained from pork and steered clear of special-interest earmarks. However, a personal crusade is no longer enough. We need to change the way Congress itself does business. This will require a huge change in the congressional culture, the type of change that can only be successfully driven from the leadership level.
Someone needs to lead this effort as our next majority leader--someone with a demonstrated independence from the pork-barrel process, someone with experience managing large legislative projects and keeping members focused on a mission. My record, coupled with my experience as a successful committee chairman and legislator, makes me the right person to lead this effort.
The next majority leader can place a greater emphasis on traditional representation. Leaders in Congress should help members find other proactive ways to represent their districts beyond securing earmarks. Developing and advancing policy proposals that reflect a district's interests is harder than getting an earmark, but ultimately it is much more important for the district and the nation. This has been my philosophy as committee chairman, and I am committed to working with my fellow chairmen to develop and promote our members' legislative accomplishments.
We also need to look at the credibility of the lobbying industry. Literally anyone can be a lobbyist. We need clearer ethical standards and greater transparency about their campaign contributions--if we're going to continue to allow such contributions at all--and we need to reform the laws governing so-called 527 organizations. Common-sense changes such as these, coupled with earmark reform in Congress, will increase public confidence and make it more difficult for inappropriate relationships to be built between legislators and lobbyists.
As long as the federal government is as big and powerful as it is, there will be corrupt lobbyists like Jack Abramoff. The best way to deal with influence peddling in Washington is to move more power out of the Beltway and back to states and communities. We can start by putting Congress on a lower-pork diet and fixing the broken system we have today.
Mr. Boehner, chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, is a candidate for U.S. House majority leader
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