20 Home Members, Principally GOP, Voted No to Funding for Their Districts

• 20 Home members, principally Republican, voted in opposition to federal funding for his or her districts.
• It exhibits the boundaries of the “earmark” course of, which goals to incentivize lawmakers to vote for payments.
• “After I solid a vote on a invoice, it needs to be reflective of my core ideas,” mentioned one Republican.

As Rep. Clay Higgins walked towards the Home ground to vote on a $1.2 trillion authorities funding invoice on Friday, the Louisiana Republican defined why his “earmarks” could not get him to vote sure.

“In the end, I do not management what the ultimate language of the whole funding invoice can be,” mentioned Higgins. “After I solid a vote on a invoice, it needs to be reflective of my core ideas.”

Higgins voted in opposition to the invoice, regardless of securing $2.3 million in federal funding for an emergency operations middle on the port in Morgan Metropolis, Louisiana.

He was considered one of 20 Home members — 15 Republicans and 5 Democrats — who voted in opposition to Friday’s authorities funding invoice regardless of securing so-called “earmarks,” identified formally as congressionally directed spending.

Earmarks, which permit lawmakers to funnel spending towards particular tasks of their districts, are controversial. Republicans banned them in 2011 amid accusations of fraud and waste, however Democrats introduced them again in 2021. One argument in favor of earmarks is that they make high-stakes laws simpler to go, offering lawmakers a stake in main payments and giving management a method to corral votes.

However current votes present that there are limits to that logic.

Friday’s invoice encompassed roughly 70% of federal authorities funding, together with the Pentagon, the State Division, the Division of Homeland Safety, and different companies.

The opposite 30% was contained in a separate funding invoice handed roughly two weeks in the past, however that invoice contained much more earmarks, particularly for Home members. Nonetheless, 42 Home members who secured earmarks voted in opposition to it anyway, 40 of whom had been Republicans.

The federal government funding invoice, a compromise hashed out between the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled Home, barely handed with the required two-thirds majority on Friday. Each progressives and Republicans discovered causes to oppose it.

Republicans protested that the invoice didn’t embrace sure hardline immigration-related coverage provisions, that tradition battle “riders” had been stripped from the compromise laws, and as all the time, that the federal authorities is spending an excessive amount of cash.

In the end, a lot of the GOP convention voted in opposition to the invoice, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is now threatening to oust Speaker Mike Johnson over it.

22 Democrats, the overwhelming majority of whom are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, voted in opposition to the invoice in protest of elevated army funding, elevated funding for border enforcement measures, and a one-year ban on funding for the UN Aid and Works Company (UNRWA), a key supplier of assist to Palestinians, significantly in Gaza.

That included Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chairwoman of the caucus, who voted in opposition to the invoice regardless of securing $1.3 million for seismic structural upgrades on the Seattle Public Library.

“We’re constantly rewarding waste, fraud, and abuse within the Pentagon by offering them with a bigger finances yr after yr,” Jayapal mentioned in a press release.

Republicans particularly have confronted accusations lately of “voting no and taking the dough” — not simply in relation to earmarks, however for celebrating funding from payments that they wholly opposed.

Already, Republicans together with Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado have bragged about earmarks they secured in authorities funding payments this week, despite the fact that they voted in opposition to the ultimate product.

Listed here are the 15 Republicans who voted in opposition to the invoice, regardless of securing earmarks:

• Brian Babin of Texas

• Gus Bilirakis of Florida

• John Curtis of Utah

• Mike Ezell of Mississippi

• Garrett Graves of Louisiana

• Michael Visitor of Mississippi

• Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee

• Clay Higgins of Louisiana

• Trent Kelly of Mississippi

• Burgess Owens of Utah

• Mike Rogers of Alabama

• Chris Smith of New Jersey

• Greg Steube of Florida

• Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey

• Randy Weber of Texas

Listed here are the 5 Democrats who did the identical:

• Andre Carson of Indiana

• Joaquin Castro of Texas

• Pramila Jayapal of Washington

• Summer season Lee of Pennsylvania

• Nydia Velázquez of New York