HOW DID YOUR LOCAL MEMBER OF CONGRESS CAST THEIR VOTES ON FIFTY SEPARATE OPPORTUNITIES TO STRIP EGREGIOUS PORK OUT OF FEDERAL SPENDING BILLS?
Perhaps one of the most influential and important groups in Washington that is dedicated to market-based economic principles, and cutting government spending, is the Club for Growth. Of the handful of key websites that our FR team goes to every morning when we compile news of interest, the CfG’s site is one of the best.
The Club for Growth has compiled a RePORK Card on how all of the members of the United States House of Representatives voted on 50 anti-pork amendments that were introduced on the floor of Congress. Over the past many weeks, Democrats were moving out all of the mammoth appropriations (spending) bills that provide the annual funding to pay for the costs of the federal government.
Right now, the growing scandal on Capitol Hill is the amount of egregious pork barrel spending that is taking place. Called "earmarks" (I guess that sounds better than pork), billions upon billions of dollars in pork spending is larded onto spending bills… It is no wonder that the public perception of Congress is at a new low. Some of these pork projects, like the now-infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" are totally outrageous.
The great news is that many of the leaders of the Republican Study Committee (the main caucus of conservatives in Congress) proposed a series of 50 separate amendments designed to target some of the most outrageous and scandalous earmarks (and these 50 are the tip of the proverbial iceberg).
The bad news is that only one of the 50 amendments passed, and in the other 49 cases, virtually all Congressional Democrats sided with a big chunk of Republican Members to oppose the stripping of these earmarks!
When I asked one Member of Congress why so many Republicans voted to keep this egregious pork in the spending bills, he told me, "There are two camps in the GOP. There is group of folks who worship this spending process, and they spend all of their time expanding earmarks, and trying to create a culture of entitlement on the Hill — this certainly includes House Appropriators."
This Congressman, who did not want to be named for this story, went on to tell me that there are many Republicans who would not vote for the amendments for fear of retribution — that their own spending requests will be reduced or eliminated.
Club for Growth President Pat Toomey, a former member of Congress from Pennsylvania, says about their RePork Card, "Taxpayers have a right to know which congressmen stand up for them and which stand up for the special interests. Unfortunately, the Club for Growth RePORK Card shows that most congressmen care more about lining their buddies’ pockets than they care about protecting American taxpayers."
First and foremost, I would like to take an opportunity to commend "The Good Guys" — there are 
four members of the California Congressional Delegation whose superior voting record in support of cutting this pork spending is worthy of note. They are pictured above, in this order. Congressman John Campbell, who scored a perfect 100% voting for all of the amendments. Also scoring in our "Good Guys" category were Congressmen Ed Royce, Darrell Issa , and Dana Rohrabacher. We’re all proud of all you! (Coincidence? I note that these are all clients of consultant Dave Gilliard.)
JUST A FEW SAMPLES OF THE WORST PORK
Below we are going to list "highlights" of just seven of the 50 target earmarks, so you can get a sense of the kind of pork projects that we are talking about — the individual ratings for every California Member of Congress will appear further down…
- $2 million for a "Paint Shield for Protecting People from Microbial Threats," requested by Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH-11). Rep. John Campbell challenged Murtha to demonstrate that the $2 million earmark would be effective and that it had been put up for a competitive bid. Murtha could not. Amendment failed, 91-317.
- $1 million to the Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, requested by Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). No congressional member could confirm the existence of the alleged Center. Amendment failed, 98-326.
- $2 million to establish the "Rangel Center for Public Service" at City College of New York, requested by none other then Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY). Amendment failed, 108-316.
- $34 million for the Alaska Native Education Equity program, requested by Rep. Don Young (R-AK). When Scott Garrett challenged Young’s earmark, Rep. Young declared, "You want my money, my money!" Amendment failed, 74-352.
- $50,000 for the National Mule and Packers Museum in California, requested by Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA). Amendment failed, 69-352.
- $100,000 for renovation of the Fire Fighters Hall in Columbus, Ohio, requested by Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH). Amendment failed, 66-364.
- $100,000 for the renovation of St. Joseph College’s theatre in Indiana, requested by Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN). Amendment failed, 97-328.
THE CALIFORNIA DELEGATION – FACTS TO PONDER
Here are some interesting facts before we share all of the votes of California’s delegation…
- 15 of our California Republicans top the delegation list. From 100% down to 15% is all Republican.
- The four Congressmen I mentioned above — Campbell, Royce, Rohrabacher and Issa, who scored between 80% – 100%.
- Four of our Republicans scored between 60 – 80%: Brian Bilbray, Dan Lungren, Devin Nunez and Kevin McCarthy.
- 37 of our California Delegation scored a dismal 4% or less (out of 50, they voted against none, 1 or 2 egregious earmarks).
- This includes ALL of our Democrats and it includes four Republicans (pictured below) — Ken Calvert (0%), Jerry Lewis (0%), John Doolittle (2%), and Buck McKeon (4%).
Needless to say, we were extremely disappointed in all thirty seven of these Members of Congress who voted against cutting such egregious pork-barrel spending. We were especially concerned that four Republicans were among them. To be honest we expected this of Jerry Lewis, but not the others.
THE CALIFORNIA DELEGATION – THE VOTES
(Key: Name, Party, District #, Percentage, total yes votes, total votes cast)
Campbell (R-48) 100% 50 / 50
Royce (R-40) 92% 46 / 50
Issa (R-49) 86% 43 / 50
Rohrabacher (R-46) 86% 43 / 50
Bilbray (R-50) 78% 38 / 49
Lungren (R-3) 74% 37 / 50
Nunes (R-21) 69% 34 / 49
McCarthy, K. (R-22) 66% 33 / 50
Radanovich (R-19) 52% 25 / 48
Herger (R-2) 47% 22 / 47
Dreier (R-26) 34% 17 / 50
Gallegly (R-24) 26% 13 / 50
Hunter (R-52) 26% 11 / 42
Miller, Gary (R-42) 24% 12 / 50
Bono (R-45) 15% 7 / 48
Costa (D-20) 4% 2 / 50
Eshoo (D-14) 4% 2 / 50
Lofgren (D-16) 4% 2 / 50
McKeon (R-25) 4% 2 / 50
Waxman (D-30) 4% 2 / 50
Woolsey (D-6) 4% 2 / 49
Stark (D-13) 3% 1 / 38
Berman (D-28) 2% 1 / 50
Capps (D-23) 2% 1 / 50
Cardoza (D-18) 2% 1 / 50
Davis, S. (D-53) 2% 1 / 50
Doolittle (R-4) 2% 1 / 50
Farr (D-17) 2% 1 / 50
Filner (D-51) 2% 1 / 48
Harman (D-36) 2% 1 / 48
Honda (D-15) 2% 1 / 43
Lantos (D-12) 2% 1 / 45
Lee (D-9) 2% 1 / 49
Matsui (D-5) 2% 1 / 50
McNerney (D-11) 2% 1 / 50
Miller, George (D-7) 2% 1 / 48
Sanchez, Linda (D-39) 2% 1 / 50
Sanchez, Loretta (D-47) 2% 1 / 50
Schiff (D-29) 2% 1 / 50
Solis (D-32) 2% 1 / 49
Tauscher (D-10) 2% 1 / 50
Thompson, M. (D-1) 2% 1 / 50
Waters (D-35) 2% 1 / 48
Baca (D-43) 0% 0 / 50
Becerra (D-31) 0% 0 / 45
Calvert (R-44) 0% 0 / 50
Lewis, Jerry (R-41) 0% 0 / 49
Napolitano (D-38) 0% 0 / 48
Roybal-Allard (D-34) 0% 0 / 50
Sherman (D-27) 0% 0 / 50
Watson (D-33) 0% 0 / 50
(Note: Nancy Pelosi is not listed as the Speaker routinely does not cast votes.)
To see the online version of this RePORK Card of Congress, which includes a list of all of the 50 amendments proposed, you can check it out here.
Something has to change on Capitol Hill. At some point, a very measured process of debating whether a particular item should be added to a funding proposed went bananas, and it has now changed the culture of Congress to one of outrageous spending, and an addiction to pork-barrel projects. America deserves better. We’re starting to see a rebellion against this way of doing business, which we applaud. We commend all Congressman willing to call for an end of this terrible status quo.
One senior staff member for a California Congressman shared with me that the mainstream media is much to blame for this problem, as they continue to pen stories that tie the perceived effectiveness of a Member of Congress to their ability to bring home the pork projects for their districts. Shame on the media for such biased coverage, and shame on letting the "tail wag the dog" if Members of Congress are letting liberal newspapers at home impact how they vote on these egregious pork barrel spending proposals.
We are proud that we have featured columns on this website from over half of our California Republican Members of Congress. So it is with that in mind that we invite any Member of Congress from the Golden State to contact us and arrange to have a column printed here, in their own words, defending their votes on the seemingly indefensible….
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