Sarah Palin, promoter of pork barrel spending

Before Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the town received no federal funds. As mayor, she hired the Anchorage law firm of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, to help the town obtain federal funds. The Wasilla account was handled by Steven W. Silver, a partner in the firm and former chief of staff to indicted-for-corruption Sen. Ted Stevens, who helped secure $67 million in federal earmarks for the town of 6,700 residents--$4,000 per person.

(Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars.)

Palin has stood up to corruption, blowing the whistle on unethical behavior by the chairman of the Alaska Republican Party despite taking a lot of heat for it. But she's also gotten into some trouble of her own, and it almost seems that she fell into her anti-corruption role by accident.

A description of Palin from her fellow Wasilla, Alaska resident Anne Kilkenny is well worth reading. (Kilkenny is also quoted regarding Palin in this New York Times story.) For further perspective, here's another close-up view of Palin as she's seen in Alaska.

UPDATE (September 4, 2008): As governor of Alaska, Palin asked for $550 million in earmarks in her first year in office, and for 31 federal earmarks totaling $198 million so far this year. Oink!

John McCain has long been a critic of earmarks. Turns out he has specifically been critical of earmarks requested by Sarah Palin.

Palin lies about the bridge to nowhere

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars shows that McCain's VP nominee, Sarah Palin, didn't take long to utter her first falsehood as candidate. Near the beginning of her acceptance speech, she said:

And I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress -- I told Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," on that bridge to nowhere.

(APPLAUSE)

If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves.

But in fact, she actually did the opposite. During her 2006 gubernatorial campaign, here's how she answered a question about the bridge when addressing an audience of Alaskans:

5. Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?

Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.

She went on to seek other projects not out of a desire for self-reliance and avoiding wasteful federal spending, but because she couldn't get enough federal funding:

"Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island," Governor Palin added. "Much of the public's attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened."

See the full story and references at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan's blog reposts this photo that shows Palin's support for the "bridge to nowhere."

UPDATE (September 14, 2008): Some Alaskans are not happy with Palin's claiming that she doesn't support what she told them she supported.

McCain dishonesty

Arianna Huffington has given a list of occasions on which Arizona Sen. John McCain has "issued heartfelt denials of things that were actually true":

* That he had talked with John Kerry about possibly leaving the Republican Party to become his vice presidential running mate in 2004.
* That he had claimed he didn't know much about economics.
* That he had ever asked for a budget earmark for Arizona.
* That he'd ever had a meeting with lobbyist Vicky Iseman.

Congressional earmark reform is a sham

From Robert Novak (ick, but it doesn't change the facts here) via Distributed Republic:

With the midnight hour approaching on Saturday, Aug. 4, near the end of a marathon session, Democratic and Republican leaders alike wanted to pass the defense appropriations bill quickly and start their summer recess. But Republican Rep. Jeff Flake's stubborn adherence to principle forced an hour-long delay that revealed unpleasant realities about Congress.

Flake insisted on debating the most egregious of the 1,300 earmarks placed in the defense money bill by individual House members that authorize spending in their districts. Defending every such earmark was the chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee: Democratic Rep. John Murtha, unsmiling and unresponsive to questions posed on the House floor by Flake. Murtha is called "King Corruption" by Republican reformers, but what happened after midnight on Aug. 5 is not a party matter. Democrats and Republicans, as always, locked arms to support every earmark. It makes no difference that at least seven House members are under investigation by the Justice Department. A bipartisan majority insists on sending taxpayers' money to companies in their districts without competitive bidding or public review.

Claims of newly established transparency were undermined by the late-night follies. Flake, who ran a Phoenix think tank, the Goldwater Institute, before coming to Congress in 2001, is immensely unpopular on both sides of the aisle for forcing votes on his colleagues' pork. He burnished that reputation by prolonging the marathon Saturday session and challenging selected earmarks.

What ensued showed the sham of earmark "reform." With debate on each earmark limited to five minutes per pro and con, and roll calls also pressed into five minutes, the House was mainly interested in finishing up and defeating Flake with huge bipartisan majorities. The mood of annoyance with Flake was personified by the 17-term Murtha, who as subcommittee chairman defended and retained every earmark (including notorious infusions of cash to his Johnstown, Pa., district).

Murtha is on CREW's list of the most corrupt Congressmen (as "one to watch") and has a history of working with Republicans in order to block fraud investigations and prevent lobbying reform. I observed last November that it looked like the Democrats were off to a poor start on reforming Congress.

Dirty Politician: Don Young

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.

Sen. Jon Kyl responsible for "secret hold" on Open Government Act

The Open Government Act, a bill which would require the government to provide justifications for refusal to answer Freedom of Information Act requests, has been blocked in the Senate by an anonymous, secret hold placed by one Senator. This is the same process by which Sen. Ted Stevens placed a secret hold last year on a bill to create a publicly searchable database of earmarks.

After the Society for Professional Journalists began a search for the responsible Senator who wants the government to continue to be able to stonewall FOIA requests without justification, he came forward--and it's Arizona Senator Jon Kyl.

Democrats plan to remove earmarks from spending bills

The Republicans dumped the job of straightening out the government's remaining spending bills for 2006 on the Democrats, who have responded by declaring that they will remove all of the earmarks from them:

"'There will be no congressional earmarks,' Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said Monday in a statement announcing their plans, which were quickly endorsed by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."

Looks like the Democrats are, for the moment, going to be more fiscally responsible than the Republicans. Not hard, given how the Republicans have spent money while they've been in power, but this is great news.

Democrats off to a lousy start in dealing with Congressional corruption

It looks like the Democrats are all set to put some of the most corrupt Democrats in Congress into leadership positions in the House.

Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), one of CREW's top 20 most corrupt Congressmen, is set to become leader of the House Appropriations committee. His sleazy deals and earmarks have already caused him to be a target of an FBI investigation.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), another of CREW's top 20 most corrupt Congressmen, is set to become leader of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee. He was caught on tape in Abscam explaining how he works scams.

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) will chair the House Permanent Standing Committee on Intelligence, despite no intelligence background, charges of accepting bribes while a judge, and being the sixth federal judge to be removed from office by Congress on charges of perjury and conspiracy to obtain a bribe.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) may become the House Majority Leader. He actively seeks funds from K Street lobbyists, and voted for last year's bankruptcy bill.

This is ridiculous--the major campaign issue in the mid-term election this week was corruption, and the Democrats are already doing their best to put their worst offenders in control.

Help expose earmarks

The Sunlight Foundation (along with Porkbusters, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, and the Examiner Newspapers) is attempting to identify the sources of over 1,800 earmarks in the 2007 appropriations bill for the U.S. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. They've got a Google Map showing the locations of each recipient. There are a number of them in Arizona; a cursory look suggests that most of them are in the districts of Arizona's Democratic Representatives, Grijalva and Pastor.

Jeff Flake's anti-earmark pork-fighting amendments

Congressman Jeff Flake (R-AZ District 6) proposed 19 amendments in order to force yes-or-no votes on earmarks in a bloated appropriations bills. They were all defeated by a wide margin, but the result produced a scoring of members of the House of Representatives who support earmarks and those who don't. (Each amendment proposed removing funding for a particular earmark, so a YES vote on each amendment is an anti-pork, anti-earmark vote; a NO vote is to keep the earmark.)

The specific earmarks were:

House Vote 190 - Dairy education in Iowa ($229,000)
House Vote 191 - Hydroponic tomato production in Ohio ($180,000)
House Vote 192 - National Grape and Wine Initiative ($100,000)
House Vote 204 - Virginia Science Museum ($250,000)
House Vote 205 - Juniata Locomotive Demonstration ($1,000,000)
House Vote 277 - Swimming pool in Banning, CA ($500,000)
House Vote 278 - “Facilities” in Weirton, West Virginia ($100,000)
House Vote 279 - Multipurpose facility in Yucaipa, California ($500,000)
House Vote 280 - Strand Theater Arts Center in Plattsburgh, New York ($250,000)
House Vote 298 - Mystic Aquarium in New London, Conn. ($1,000,000)
House Vote 299 - The Jason Foundation in Ashburn, VA ($1,000,000)
House Vote 302 - Northwest Manufacturing Initiative ($2,500,000)
House Vote 303 - Lewis Center for Education Research ($4,000,000)
House Vote 304 - Leonard Wood Research Institute ($20,000,000)
House Vote 334 - Arthur Avenue Retail Market ($150,000)
House Vote 335 - Bronx Council for the Arts in Bronx, N.Y. ($300,000)
House Vote 336 - Johnstown Area Regional Industries ($800,000)
House Vote 337 - Fairmont State University ($900,000)
House Vote 338 - Tourism Development Association in Kentucky ($1,000,000)

Here's how Arizona's Representatives fared:

19 out of 19 NO (anti-earmark):
Flake (R, AZ District 6)
Franks (R, AZ District 2)
Hayworth (R, AZ District 5)
Shadegg (R, AZ District 3)

0 out of 19 NO (pro-earmark):
Grijalva (D, AZ District 7)
Kolbe (R, AZ District 8)
Pastor (D, AZ District 4)
Renzi (R, AZ District 1)

I'm sorry to see that my representative, Ed Pastor, voted in full support of these earmarks, though it does seem to me that both all YES and all NO votes are suggestive of a failure to judge them on individual merit. I do find an all YES (anti-earmark) vote more principled, as the practice of inserting earmarks has been an "invitation to corruption" (as Talking Point Memo puts it).

Flake plans to continue challenging every earmark that does not include the name of a sponsor, and posts an "egregious earmark of the week" on his website under the "earmark reform" category.

Dirty Politician: Conrad Burns

Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) says that Jack Abramoff never influenced him, but Abramoff says in Vanity Fair that he got everything he ever asked for from Burns:

"Every appropriation we wanted [from Burns' committee] we got. Our staffs were as close as they could be. They practically used Signatures [Abramoff's restaurant] as their cafeteria."

Burns' former staffers have also made millions from going to work for telecom and tech firms that have received funding from Burns earmarks.

Dirty Politician: Rick Santorum

The largest known donor to Rick Santorum's charity, The Operation Good Neighbor Foundation, is Preferred Real Estate, Inc., which donated $25,000 in 2002. Preferred Real Estate officers and spouses also donated $22,350 to Santorum's re-election campaign and $6,000 to his Political Action Committee, America's Foundation.

Preferred Real Estate is the developer of the Wharf at Rivertown project in Chester, PA, the site of a former Peco Energy plant, which it bought for $1. Santorum's campaign web site boasts of winning $8.5 million in federal funding for the Preferred Real Estate riverfront project, in the form of a HUD grant. He also obtained another $6 million in highway development earmarks to build access to the riverfront project from Interstate 95 and U.S. 322.

More at the Philadelphia Daily News (via Talking Points Memo).