Internal Senate GOP earmark war renews shutdown threat

An internal Senate Republican war over earmarks in the government funding package is creating a new threat of a government shutdown Saturday, and it threatens to spill over into the race to replace outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

Conservatives began waging their offensive against the bill Sunday, and on Thursday they pushed a resolution to condemn earmarks and reaffirm the earmark ban that reigned in Congress for 10 years.

They also demanded a vote on an amendment sponsored by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to strip all of the earmarks from the bill, which total more than 6,000 and cost more than $12 billion.  

But the effort divides the conference, pitting conservatives such as Sens. Scott, Mike Lee (Utah) and Rick Braun (Ind.) against their own leadership and other Republican senators.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), for example, has requested $116 million worth of earmarks in the six-bill appropriations package pending in the Senate.

Sixteen other Republican senators have also requested earmarks in the spending bills.

“One of the best ways to cut reckless spending is to take a serious look at earmarks,” Scott said on the Senate floor, previewing his resolution to condemn “congressionally directed spending” and to reaffirm a permanent ban on earmarks.

“American taxpayers should not be used as a political piggy bank. Earmarks have been so badly abused that we can’t let it go on like this any longer. The time for forgiveness has passed,” he said.

The resolution to reaffirm the binding earmark ban is cosponsored by Scott, Braun, Lee, Senate Republican Conference Chair John Barrasso (Wyo.) and GOP Sens. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Steve Daines (Mont.).

The Senate Republican Conference already has a rule banning earmarks, but it is nonbinding, allowing GOP senators to request earmarks if they want to.

“It is still the conference policy of the Senate Republican Conference that we are opposed to earmarks, and yet we’re returning to it. We’re returning to it to our own detriment, but especially to the American people,” Lee said at a press conference Wednesday with Scott and Braun.

Scott’s effort to reaffirm the ban is ruffling the feathers of fellow GOP senators.

“He’s full of bull,” fumed one GOP senator who requested funding for home-state projects.

The senator requested anonymity to vent frustration over the effort by Senate conservatives to portray GOP colleagues who request earmarks as not serious about fiscal discipline.

Thune has requested funding for a slew of projects in his home state, including $23.6 million for wastewater systems in South Dakota communities and $30 million for the Black Hills Housing Trust Fund.

Thune’s rival in the race to become next Senate GOP leader, Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), has not requested any earmarks in the six-bill minibus package. But Cornyn has to be careful not to offend his 16 Senate GOP colleagues other than Thune who have requested earmarks for fiscal 2024.

Voting to reaffirm an earmark ban is one thing, but voting to strip colleagues’ earmarks from the spending package could risk alienating potential votes in the leadership race.

Barrasso, a co-sponsor of the resolution, declined Thursday to say whether he would vote to strip fellow Republicans’ funding requests from the bill.

“I have no earmarks in this package,” he said when asked about stripping earmarks. “I have no earmarks in this at all. I haven’t brought forth earmarks, and I’m against earmarks.”

The Wyoming senator is running to become the next Senate GOP whip.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who is endorsing Thune for leader, argued that members of Congress have more expertise about how to spend federal money in their own states than “bureaucrats” in Washington.

“I believe that I can do a better job than a bureaucrat in this administration about where the money should go,” he said.

He noted that he only asks for appropriations dollars for projects that have been properly by Congress or state authorities.

“I’d rather do it than to hope somebody from this administration makes the right choice,” he said.

Rounds said he would oppose any effort to strip earmarks out of the package, which would fund military construction and the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Justice, Energy, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development.

“I feel very strongly about that. I think individuals should have the opportunity” to request earmarks “and then go home and defend what they’ve done,” Rounds said.

Other Senate Republicans who have requested earmarks are Sens. John Boozman (Ark.), Katie Britt (Ala.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Bill Cassidy (La.), Susan Collins (Maine), Deb Fischer (Neb.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (Miss.), John Kennedy (La.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Markwayne Mullin (Okla.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Thom Tillis (N.C.), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.).

The pushback from Rounds and other Republican colleagues isn’t stopping Senate conservatives from rallying against the earmarks in the spending package.

They are highlighting $1 million in funding for an environmental justice center in New York City, $3.5 million for a Thanksgiving parade in Michigan, and $1 million for a social justice center in San Francisco to make building improvements.

Scott and his colleagues are also pointing out $4 million for a waterfront walkway in New Jersey and theater and opera house renovations in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Senate conservatives advocating for the return of a real earmark ban argue the federal government is now more than $34 trillion in debt and point out that members of the House requested 5,000 earmarks and senators requested more than 19,000 earmarks for fiscal 2024.

Since Democrats overturned the earmark ban after taking control of the White House and Senate in 2021, Congress passed 4,970 earmarks totaling $9 billion for fiscal 2022 and 7,234 earmarks totaling $15.3 billion for fiscal 2023.

A majority of Senate Republicans are expected to support the resolution to reaffirm the earmark ban if Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) allows it to come up for a vote on the floor.

Schumer signaled Thursday that he did not intend to let conservatives vote on the amendment to strip earmarks for the bill.

He announced the Senate will vote around noon Friday to end debate and advance the legislation, making no mention of amendments.

That would set up a vote on final passage of the minibus spending package later Friday or sometime Saturday.

Senate conservatives could attempt to stretch the debate into the weekend to protest the earmarks and force a technical shutdown of some federal departments and agencies. But no senator had yet threatened to do that as of Thursday evening.