Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

As my readers know, I was a strong supporter of Bob Schaffer’s run for Senate. I opposed Mark Udall – and continue to oppose him – on most policy matters, though everyone I know who knows him says he’s a decent guy. (It’s only liberals who care more about intentions than outcomes.)

So, in the interest of fairness (and because it’s so rare), I want to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate Senator Udall for co-sponsoring, with Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Senate Resolution 63 which would:

1) require that “All congressionally directed spending items [earmarks] shall be included in the text of an appropriations or authorization bill and any conference report related to that appropriations or authorization bill",

2) require any earmark request by a Senator to be put up on that Senator’s web site, in a way that is searchable and not concealed from public view, within 48 hours of the request,

3) define it as “out of order", in Senate rules parlance, “to consider an appropriations or authorization bill, amendment, or conference report if it contains a congressionally directed spending item for a private for-profit or non-profit entity", and

4) allow a Senator to raise a point of order against any earmark which is added to a bill during a House-Senate conference and which wasn’t in either chamber’s original bill, a practice often called “parachuting” or “airdropping” an earmark.

In other words, the McCaskill-Udall Resolution, which was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday, March 4th, might not stop earmarks but it could make them more difficult to sneak in and make an earmark request quite easy to turn into an embarrassment for a Senator. There’s no disinfectant in politics quite like the bright light of day.

So, although it may sound strange coming from me, thanks to Mark Udall for trying to draw the curtains open on the insidious practice of earmarking, an activity which Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) calls the “gateway drug on the road to the spending addiction.“