Clyburn Lobbies For "Artfully Redefined Earmarks" In Stimulus

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has been leading a lobbying effort, directed at the incoming administration, to address the earmark prohibition in the inchoate stimulus plan. Clyburn claims to speak for many incoming House freshmen who fear that they will have nothing to show their respective districts for their time in office. As Roll Call reports:

Clyburn said the package can be written in such a way that governors have relatively little control over the money, and the funds can flow directly to local communities.

"The pro or con on earmarks I think missed the point," Clyburn said. "Members are very concerned about going out in their Congressional districts and trying to get elected. ... They want to be sure their votes will respond to their constituents."

Clyburn has good reason for insisting that federal funds bypass governors. The governor of his state, ultraconservative Republican Mark Sanford, presides over the third-highest jobless rate in the country but still refuses to apply for a $146 million federal loan to ameliorate the crisis. According to the New York Times:

The governor's position had drawn rebukes even from fellow Republicans in the Legislature, one of whom denounced Mr. Sanford as "heartless," and from newspaper editorial pages. On Wednesday, The State, the daily newspaper here in Columbia, accused the governor of playing "chicken with the lives of the 77,000" who are unemployed in South Carolina.

...

"It's absolutely unheard of, it's insane, for a governor of any state not to request those funds," State Senator Hugh K. Leatherman, a Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said last week. "I can't believe anybody would be this heartless, and create such a heartless act on these people.

Most other members of Congress do not necessarily share Clyburn's particular domestic problem. However, others have begun to delve into the precise definition of "earmarks" to question whether a stimulus plan totally bereft of the stuff is even possible. On his blog, Political Punch, ABC's Jake Tapper points out an ambiguous statement by President-elect Obama that earmarks are only projects that have not been subject to any congressional review. Tapper quotes Obama:

But President-elect Obama's response was to offer his definition of earmarks once more. "Let me repeat what I said about that: We will ban all earmarks in the recovery package," said Mr. Obama. "And I describe earmarks as the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review. So what I'm saying is, we're not having earmarks in the recovery package, period. I was describing what earmarks are."

Given the stimulus plan's focus on infrastructure spending, funds will inevitably have to be appropriated to localities. And representatives of each state and district will no doubt enjoy increased political capital for their re-election campaigns as a result. Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been ardent on their position that there will be no earmarks in the stimulus, meaning that all projects and appropriations will be thoroughly reviewed to account for the proverbial "bridges to nowhere."

It will be interesting to see how it all turns out. But one thing is for sure: the precise definition of "earmarks" could very well be called into question again during the process as each state and district vies for its piece of the pie.