WASHINGTON — By a sizable — but dwindling — margin, the Senate on Tuesday voted in favor of allowing lawmakers to keep stocking bills with home-state projects such as roads, grants to local police departments, special-interest tax breaks and clean-water projects.
But with the House set to tumble into GOP hands and anti-earmark reinforcements coming to the Senate in January, the window seems to be closing on the practice.
Tuesday’s 39-56 tally rejected a GOP bid to ban the practice of loading spending bills with so-called earmarks — those parochial provisions that lawmakers deliver to their states — but it appears the curtain is coming down on the practice.
Most Democrats and a handful of Republicans combined to defeat the effort, which would have effectively prohibited the Senate from considering legislation containing earmarks.
The tally, however, was a better showing for earmark opponents, who lost a 29-68 vote earlier this year. Any votes next year should be closer because a band of anti-earmark Republicans is joining the Senate.
“More like 45 or better,” said earmark opponent Jim DeMint, R-S.C.
In November, Republicans bowed to Tea Party activists and passed a party resolution declaring GOP senators would give up earmarks. House Republicans have also given up the practice, but most Democrats say earmarks are a legitimate way to direct taxpayer money to their constituents.
Seven Democrats voted with all but eight Republicans to ban the practice.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Tuesday that Democrats had made the earmarking process far more transparent than it previously had been under GOP control of Congress. The reforms include requiring lawmakers to document every project they seek and receive.
Critics say that peppering most spending bills with hundreds or even thousands of earmark projects creates a go-along-get-along mindset that ensures that Washington spending goes unchecked.
Supporters of a ban on earmarks picked up new help from Democrats Michael Bennet and Mark Udall of Colorado, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Mark Warner of Virginia. At the same time, eight Republicans who opposed the ban in a vote in March now have joined with earmark opponents, including Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Olympia Snowe of Maine.
Udall, along with Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, had been pushing the legislation originally proposed by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
“While I’m disappointed that our bipartisan earmark moratorium was unsuccessful, I’m going to keep fighting,” Udall said Tuesday. “Controlling our spending is going to take restraint from each one of us in Washington. Colorado families have been tightening their belts throughout this economic downturn. So should Congress.”
