How corrupt is our Congress? They're not even pretending to follow the Constitution.
Talking Points Memo reports on how Rep. Don Young (R-AK) inserted an earmark to spend $10 million on a highway interchange in Florida ("Coconut Road") to benefit real estate developer Daniel Aranoff, a few days after Aranoff raised $40,000 for Young.
The really interesting part is not an Alaskan legislator doing political favors for contributions from a Florida developer, but the fact that the earmark was not in the version of the bill that passed the House or Senate--it was added to the bill during the enrollment process, after its passage but before being signed by President Bush. This is a process which is only supposed to allow correction of typographical and technical but non-substantive errors.
Perhaps the author of the earmark does not consider the amount of $10 million to be substantative.
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