Texas, Arkansas Republicans hoover up earmarks in House
House Republicans have so thoroughly stacked the earmarking deck in their favor in appropriations bills for the upcoming fiscal year that the top Democratic recipient doesn’t even appear in the top 60 among lawmakers in that chamber.
In their first year in the majority since Congress in 2021 brought back the practice Republicans banned a decade earlier, GOP lawmakers are spreading nearly $7.4 billion among 4,714 individual projects tucked inside the fiscal 2024 appropriations bills.
While Democrats requested 65 percent of those earmarks, they are receiving less than 38 percent of the dollars at nearly $2.8 billion, a CQ Roll Call analysis found.
Republicans argue that’s only fair; Democrats gave themselves roughly the same percentage when they were in charge. But Democrats allowed Republicans the largest individual hauls in that chamber last year, and eight out of the top 10 earmarkers in initial fiscal 2023 bills were GOP members.
In the GOP’S fiscal 2024 bills, the first Democrat to appear is at No. 64 — Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-ill., a freshman in her party’s Frontline program for endangered members.
No. 1 on the list is Energy-water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Chuck Fleischmann, R-tenn., who secured $273.3 million, mostly for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Chickamauga Lock project in Chattanooga that backers say is integral to the state’s economy.
Twenty out of the top 30 in terms of dollars secured are either members of the Appropriations Committee, other full committee chairs or members of the GOP leadership. Ten are Appropriations “cardinals,” or subcommittee chairs. The two remaining cardinals still pulled in more than Budzinski.
Other top recipients include No. 2 Randy Weber of Texas — last year’s No. 1 — followed by Rick Crawford of Arkansas.
Garret Graves of Louisiana, head of the Elected Leadership Committee and a top ally of Speaker Kevin Mccarthy, and spending critic Matt Gaetz of Florida — a Freedom Caucus member whose initial opposition to Mccarthy almost tanked the Californian’s speakership bid — round out the top 15.
Agriculture Appropriations Chairman Andy Harris, R-MD., a Freedom Caucus member who two years ago signed a “no earmarks” pledge, is No. 20, at $42.9 million; Ben Cline, R-VA., another Freedom Caucus appropriator, is No. 24 with $42 million.
The fifth-ranking House Republican and chairman of the party’s campaign committee, Richard Hudson of North Carolina, is also the fifth most prolific earmarker in the chamber, with $97 million for two Fort Bragg construction projects.
Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-minn., is 28th on the list at $40.2 million. His chief deputy, appropriator Guy Reschenthaler, R-PA., secured $60.9 million, good for 11th place.
Mccarthy doesn’t request earmarks.
There are only three Democrats in the top 100: Budzinski, fellow Illinois freshman Frontliner Eric Sorensen, and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who’s running for Houston mayor. Sorensen and Jackson Lee each secured around $25 million.
Budzinski’s and Sorensen’s totals include proportional shares of a bipartisan $75 million Army Corps earmark for Upper Mississippi River construction; the other three requesting lawmakers are GOP Reps. Sam Graves and Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and Darin Lahood of Illinois. Jackson Lee’s total includes a $24.8 million joint request with Wesley Hunt, R-texas, for Houston Ship Channel expansion.
That means no Democrat cracked the top 100 without teaming up with Republicans.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is at No. 119, with $17.9 million.
The largest single earmark for a Democrat-only request is $7.2 million that Veronica Escobar, D-texas, secured in the Military Construction-va bill for a training barracks at Fort Bliss in El Paso.