‘Earmarks’ rankle some lawmakers
Others say they are essential in helping out their districts
HARRISBURG – The frustration of voting to spend millions in taxpayer money during the annual budget process on things they could not easily identify — pet projects or causes described in coded language but never named — is still fresh among some Harrisburg lawmakers, six weeks after the votes were taken.
The thought “just drives me wild,” said state Rep. Jerry Knowles of Schuylkill County.
“Deceptive,” said Rep. Dawn Keefer of York County.
“Not transparent,” said a spokesman for Sen. Lisa Boscola of Northampton County.
Here are just two of dozens of “earmarks” in a bill put to a vote on June 27:
“$918,000 shall be distributed to a community college in a county of the fourth class with a population of at least 175,000, but not more than 190,000.”
“$1,900,000 shall be allocated for costs related to capital equipment for a rural transit service headquartered in this Commonwealth that provides intercity line-run service with at least six different lines.”
Which college? What transit service?
Answers were difficult or impossible for some lawmakers to determine, especially in the short time be
tween when they first saw the language and when they had to vote on it.
The wording appears in a 15,000-word “fiscal code” that specifically directs spending related to the state budget. It was put to a vote in both the House and Senate on the same day final changes were made to it.
Earmarks in the fiscal code bill have become a routine, end-of-the-budget-year occurrence in Harrisburg that influential lawmakers control. The Commonwealth Foundation, a right-leaning capital-based think tank, puts out a report each year criticizing the practice.
Their appearance in the latest bill — the foundation subsequently identified more than 80, worth at least $61 million and a 74 percent increase from the previous year — meant lawmakers without inside knowledge had to play sleuth on where the money was going. Or, they had to vote blind on at least some fiscal code spending.
Critics say legislative leaders use earmarks to direct spending into their own districts and, like rewards, toward those of lawmakers who support leadership’s objectives.
Leaders of the appropriations committees in both chambers defended the practice, saying it gives the Legislature direct power in spending money. Doing it differently, they said, would cede the legislative branch’s spending power to the executive branch — ultimately putting it in the hands of just one person, the governor.
“What is in place now is better than what they would want,” said state Sen. Pat Browne, a Lehigh County Republican and head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, referring to critics.
John O’Brien, a spokesman for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Stan Saylor, said the creation of the fiscal code has worked the same way for years.
Because the code bill relies on a budget agreement, it typically is not finished until just before lawmakers are ready to break for the summer at the end of June. That is why lawmakers have little time to read — let alone research — the lengthy fiscal code bill.
O’Brien said Saylor understood the frustration with the language, but said the state Constitution dictates it be that way. Browne also said the bill-writers have little wiggle room.
“That is how you have to do it, legally,” Browne said. “The lawyers are the ones that determine how you draft this. You cannot name the organization.”
O’Brien said Article III of the state Constitution precluded mentioning specific non-state, fund-receiving entities in the fiscal code. And a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, Jennifer Kocher, cited a specific section of the article that referred to charitable and educational appropriations and said it prevented the mention of specific funding recipients.
Any lawmaker, Browne said, has the resources to figure out what the spending-designation sentences mean.
Kocher called them “fairly easy to decipher.”
A number of lawmakers had the opposite impression.
Knowles, a Republican said the fact the Legislature’s leaders do not issue a cheat sheet saying exactly who is getting the money — a supplemental document that would be outside the code bill and hence not violate the Constitution — speaks for itself.
“This is where the mischief takes place,” Knowles said. “The bottom line is somebody knows where this money is going. And, why don’t you just tell me? Just tell me.”
Keefer — like Browne and Saylor, a Republican — said she tried hard to figure out which transit service was getting $1.9 million without luck.
“I was calling around saying, ‘Is this your county?’” Keefer said.
She consulted a separate state budget “tracking run” document that showed a $1,900,000 expenditure, but still did not identify the recipient. Ultimately, she concluded the money was going to a Centre County bus company, but still was uncertain.
“This process appears deceptive and the complete lack of transparency is an insult to voters and a blatant manipulation of the budget, intentionally circumventing the legislative process,” she said.
State Rep. Mark Gillen, a Berks County Republican, said he doesn’t like to vote on massive, last-minute bills that have had little scrutiny by most lawmakers. “It appears there could be an attempt to mask, at least temporarily, where the dollars are going,” Gillen said.
Joe Kelly, the spokesman for Boscola, a Democrat senator, said she felt earmarks are “not transparent and there is not accountability.” State Sen. Mike Folmer, a Lebanon County Republican, said, “You don’t know these things until it shows up in the fiscal code and you are voting on it the next day, or even that afternoon.”
Republican state Rep. Frank Ryan of Lebanon County said he was opposed to any kind of earmarks, and Republican state Rep. Christopher Quinn of Delaware County said a better process was needed.
At the same time, the use of earmarks has plenty of fans in the Legislature.
Lehigh County Rep. Peter Schweyer, a Democrat, said, “I am not doing my job if I am not securing dollars for my district.”
Another Lehigh County Democrat, Rep. Mike Schlossberg, said he, too, felt he was elected to bring jobs and money home to his district.
“I wasn’t elected to be an ideological purist,” Schlossberg said. “I have shamelessly fought for additional funding for my district.”
He said he would use any vehicle — including earmarks in the fiscal code — to bring money to the patch of Lehigh County that he represents.
He, Schweyer and Browne were collectively responsible for an extra payment of $10 million to the Allentown School District written into a code bill in 2018.
Getting district-specific money designations written into code bills is just how the process works. Politics, Schlossberg said, undoubtedly plays a role. But Schlossberg dislikes the rush forced on lawmakers when large-size spending bills reach them a short time before scheduled votes.
“Process does matter,” he said. “I wish we had more time.”
Marc Stier, a spokesman for Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, a left-leaning Harrisburg think tank, said projects funded by earmarks might be the most transparent, not the least. Lawmakers often issue press releases about fiscal code-funded projects, he said, calling attention to them.
“I don’t know that there is any way to take politics out of politics,” he said. “When people attack these projects, it is more of an attack on government in general than an attack on this process.”
The Morning Call interviews with lawmakers were triggered by the report from the Commonwealth Foundation.
A spokesman, John Bouder, said earmarks were the opposite of transparency.
He said, “If lawmakers think these programs are beneficial, they should be part of a competitive grant process, not a backroom deal hidden in coded language.”
Morning Call reporter Ford Turner can be reached at 717-783-7305 or fturner@mcall.com