House members had to post their earmark requests for fiscal year 2010 online this weekend; the original deadline was Friday, but that was extended to Saturday at 5 p.m., according to CNN.
So how many members made the deadline? I can't be sure, but I tried to find out over the weekend. I went through 430-some Web sites (there are a few vacancies right now -- Rahm Emanuel's seat, Hilda Solis' seat, and Kirsten Gillibrand's seat) looking for those disclosures (sometimes it was really interesting, sometimes it was thankless drudgery). On 116 Web pages, I couldn't ...
Continue readingEarmark requests due online today
I was just forwarded a press release from the office of Rep. Jeff Flake, reminding us that members have to post their earmark requests online today:
Washington, D.C. " Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, who represents Arizona's Sixth District, today highlighted the House of Representatives' earmark request deadline for fiscal year 2010. Today is the deadline.In February, the House Appropriations Committee issued a new rule concerning FY10 earmark requests: To offer more opportunity for public scrutiny of Member requests, Members must post information on the requests they have submitted to the Appropriations Committee on their official House website at ...
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Unraveling Rangel
It's been interesting to watch the stories that have described multiple ethics problems for Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and someone identified by The Hill as the top fundraiser for House Democrats. The Washington Post seems to have kicked things off with a story on July 14 saying that Rangel used official House stationary to solicit big donations for his Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York. There followed a series of revelations that he wasn't properly declaring income on a vacation property ...
Continue readingTracking earmarks from Obama and Biden
Taxpayers for Commons Sense rolled out a pair of new databases on earmarks of presidential candidates, this time covering Sen. Barack Obama's requests from 2006 to 2008, and his funded earmarks for 2008. The databases are online here.
A list of the earmarks Sen. Joe Biden requested for fiscal year 2009 is available here. Robert Bluey at Red State is calling on Biden to disclose all his earmark requests--can't argue with that. But for those who want to dig around in the press release archives of his site, there are plenty of releases like this one from prior ...
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