A Proliferation of 'Earmarks'
Lawmakers in Tight Races Aim to Bring Spending Home
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 29, 2002; Page A01
Republicans are casting a covetous eye on the Senate seat occupied by Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who faces a strong challenge from Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.) in November's midterm elections. But Johnson has one big advantage over his well-funded rival. It's called the federal budget.
With considerable help from Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who appointed him to the Appropriations Committee last year, Johnson has secured tens of millions of dollars for South Dakota projects, trumpeting them in news releases such as this one in January: "Through Johnson's seat on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and Senator Daschle's position as Majority Leader, they were able to secure an additional $4 million in emergency funds for the cities of Philip and Wall."
Along with Daschle, Johnson also claims credit for a provision in the 2002 defense appropriations bill that would protect a South Dakota gold-mine owner from environmental lawsuits. The measure is a first step toward building a government physics lab in the soon-to-be-shuttered mine, at an estimated construction cost of $280 million.
Steering federal resources back home is a big part of what many politicians in Washington do, and leaders of both parties have routinely leaned on the appropriations panels to make extra efforts for lawmakers in tight races. But the pressures surrounding this election cycle are especially high. With Republicans hoping to overcome the Democrats' razor-thin Senate majority, and Democrats eyeing the handful of seats they need to win back the House, each side is touting its ability to win projects for constituents via "earmarks" to federal spending bills.
"We've seen a jump in the number of requests that we get, and there's been a jump in the amount we've done," a GOP aide involved in the appropriations process said. "I think there are a lot of reasons for that, and the closeness of the election is probably one. . . . That's what we do. You take care of your own people."
Often derided as "pork," earmarks have more than tripled in number over the last four years, to 7,803 in the latest crop of spending bills, according to a White House tally. The Bush administration has sharply criticized the trend. "The practice politely called congressional earmarking mars merit-based processes for distributing the American people's resources," the president's recent budget proposal declares.
But administration spending decisions are hardly untainted by politics. With an eye on November, for example, White House political adviser Karl Rove's office took pains to ensure that Thune could share credit with Johnson for the South Dakota physics lab. That meant overriding Justice Department objections to the gold-mine liability measure and pushing to include $10 million for the project in the administration's 2003 budget, according to a GOP congressional aide close to discussions surrounding the project.
"The political people in the White House were extremely involved in this and pushing as hard for the project as Daschle," the aide said. "Everyone was led to understand that this was being treated as something vital to the Senate race that was most likely to produce a Republican pickup."
Amy Call, spokeswoman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the office worked with Thune to get the liability measure through Congress in a form acceptable to the administration. She acknowledged that Rove's staff "might have talked to our policy staff about how the discussions were going."
Last spring, the administration restored $93 million to an Arkansas highway project after an appeal from Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-Ark.), whose seat is considered vulnerable in November. An OMB spokesman at the time said the administration had based its earlier decision to cut the funding on incomplete information.
At least in Washington, neither lawmakers nor administration officials like to admit the role that politics plays in determining how to spend taxpayers' money. They are much less reticent with voters back home.
In South Dakota, Daschle often reminds constituents of the budgetary influence he wields as the most powerful Democrat in Washington -- a tactic that helps explain his continuing popularity in a state where President Bush won 60 percent of the vote in 2000.
"People in South Dakota are well aware that we receive a tremendous amount of federal assistance in various forms and that their congressional leadership is the primary vehicle by which it comes to the state," said Bill Richardson, a political science professor at the University of South Dakota. "That is certainly factored into their decision when they walk into the voting booth."
Over the last year, Daschle has worked hard to help Johnson secure his political base, a task that has assumed even more significance since Democrats gained their one-seat advantage in the Senate in June.
Johnson was regarded as vulnerable even before Thune entered the race with strong backing from Bush. Daschle named Johnson to the Appropriations Committee early last year. Johnson said in a statement at the time, "I will be able to continue my aggressive advocacy for South Dakota's agricultural producers . . . [and help] South Dakota communities pursue funding for projects."
He has delivered: The 2002 appropriations bill for labor, health and education programs included 27 South Dakota earmarks worth $18.3 million, most of them added by Johnson and Daschle, according to GOP congressional staff. The earmarks direct money to schools, hospitals and nursing homes, as well as more obscure projects such as the Intertribal Bison Cooperative ($300,000).
Thune also played a role in securing the South Dakota earmarks, but his leverage is diminished because he doesn't sit on the House Appropriations Committee.
Johnson, describing his campaign strategy in an interview earlier this year, said he was running in part on his "clout" as an Appropriations Committee member "at a time when the budget is going to be extraordinarily tight." He added, "We have three of the largest drinking water projects in the world under construction in South Dakota. The president has underfunded all of them. Where is South Dakota going to get the money unless they have a member on the Appropriations Committee?"
The idea of converting South Dakota's Homestake Gold Mine to a physics lab began with scientists led by John Bahcall, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who approached Daschle's office for help, Daschle spokesman Jay Carson said. Bahcall and other scientists said the mine would be an ideal place to study subatomic particles called neutrinos because its 8,000-foot depth would shield experiments from radiation.
Johnson jumped on the bandwagon, saying in a January 2001 news release that the project "could mean nearly 150 jobs for mine support and as many as 200 individuals from the mine community." In another release in August, Johnson boasted that he had "successfully inserted" $10 million for the project in the appropriations bill for veterans' and housing programs.
He then joined Daschle in winning Senate passage in November of legislation demanded by the mine owner, Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp., to protect the company from lawsuits that might arise from environmental damage caused by the century-old operation. In return, the company would transfer ownership to South Dakota, which would then turn the mine over to the National Science Foundation for a laboratory.
Some administration officials questioned the project. In a draft letter addressed last year to Daschle, Daniel J. Bryant, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, warned that "with respect to environmental claims, the U.S.'s liability would potentially be unlimited" under the legislation.
But the letter was never sent, in part because Rove's office urged the Justice Department to reach an accommodation with Daschle so Thune could also claim credit for the project, the GOP aide familiar with the discussions said. A Justice Department official said Bryant's office withheld the letter after "it was recommended you might want to work with Daschle" on the bill.
The official declined to say who in the White House made the recommendation or whether Thune's Senate campaign was a factor. The official said that after the bill left the Senate for the House, Thune worked successfully with the administration and House Republican leaders to make improvements aimed at reducing taxpayer liability. As a result, the official said, the Justice Department did not take a position on the bill's final version, which cleared the House and Senate on Dec. 20.
Much to Daschle's and Johnson's irritation, Thune has since run campaign ads touting his "bipartisan" efforts on behalf of the Homestake project (which is now stalled because the company objects to the changes made to the liability language in the House). His chief of staff, Jafar Karim, said Rove and his staff "have an awareness" of Thune's efforts to secure administration support for the liability provision and project funding, but he declined to provide details of White House involvement.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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