Draining the swamp? GOP-led House looks to bring back earmarks

By Deirdre Walsh and Ted Barrett, CNN

Updated 2:30 PM ET, Wed November 16, 2016

Washington (CNN) Draining the swamp?

House Republicans appear to be ignoring President-elect Donald Trump's slogan for reforming Washington and are scheduled to vote Wednesday whether to overturn their own ban on earmarks -- billions of dollars for pet projects tucked into spending bills.

Supporters of the change argue that ban went too far because they can't direct funding to much-needed projects in their districts. They say the shift gave too much power to the White House and unelected bureaucrats in federal agencies who now decide where to spend the money. Former House Speaker John Boehner ran his leadership campaign on attacking the earmark practice and did away with it when he took over in 2011. Current Speaker Paul Ryan supported that move and has emphasized it in recent speeches. Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake, a champion of the reform when he served in the House, warned ahead of the vote in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday that "you can't drain the swamps by feeding the alligators pork."

The explosion in earmarks roughly 15 years ago gave the Appropriations Committee the nickname as the "favor factory," with lobbyists contributing campaign donations to members of the panel and clients nabbing federal money for water systems, road construction and other items. The symbol of some of the wasteful spending was the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" that linked a small Alaskan town to an island. Construction on that bridge was eventually canceled but it came after a spotlight on the practice of doling out so-called "pork barrel" spending.

"I understand there were problems with it, and there were abuses in the earmark system, but it's still Congress' constitutional duty and responsibility to spend the money," Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Lou Barletta, a member of the Trump transition team, told CNN, adding, "some bureaucrat somewhere could be spending this money and now we have no control over that spending." Barletta said he expected the proposal would have enough votes to pass, but outside conservative advocacy groups were lobbying against it.

Florida Republican Rep. Tom Rooney, one of the members proposing the change, told reporters Tuesday that the amount of spending won't increase -- it will just be controlled by members of Congress who know the specific needs of their districts. Rooney told reporters his proposed change is not about money but about who has the authority to tell the Army Corps of Engineers how to dole out their funds for local projects -- Congress or "unelected bureaucrats." "‎I can write a letter and hope that they listen to me, which over at the Army Corps they probably take that letter and put it into the shredder. They don't give a rat's ass what I think."

The proposed rule change, also backed by Rep. John Culbertson and Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, does not open the door to members directing funds for all agencies, but if it passes would certainly put Congress back in charge of who gets billions of dollars in federal money. Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, pointed to last week's election results as evidence that House Republicans should keep the earmark ban. "Did they learn nothing at all from these elections? People are tired of business as usual in DC. After this historic election are they really going to go back to business as usual in their first votes? This is not a show of good faith, it's a show of callous cynicism and hypocrisy."

If the new rule is added to the House Republicans' package that is being crafted this week it would get a final vote in January when the House approves the guidelines for the new session of Congress.