Defense earmarks and campaign contributions

A recent editorial in the Washington Post called for a complete ban on Congressional earmarks.  In doing so, it criticized the House Ethics Committee for not continuing to investigate two members of Congress regarding the relationship between campaign contributions and defense earmarks.  In leveling this criticism, the Post cited an investigative report by the newly created independent Office of Congressional Ethics.  However, a closer look at the report’s findings tells a very different story. 

OCE investigated seven members of Congress on allegations of misconduct regarding defense earmarks and campaign contributions.   Based on OCE’s report and its own on-going investigation, the House Ethics Committee “found no evidence that Members or their official staff considered campaign contributions as a factor when requesting earmarks. The Standards Committee further found no evidence that Members or their official staff were directly or indirectly engaged in seeking contributions in return for earmarks. Rather, the evidence showed that earmarks were evaluated based upon criteria independent of campaign contributions, such as the number of jobs created in the Member’s district or the value to the taxpayer or the U.S. military, and without Members or their official staff linking, or being aware that companies may have intended to link, contributions with earmarks.”

The Ethics Committee went on to note, “[T]the record indicates that Members, by and large, take great care to separate their official and campaign functions, particularly with respect to earmark requests.”

I have to say that the findings of the House Ethics Committee track with my past experience as a Congressional staffer dealing with defense earmarks.  Within the office I worked, I had primary responsibility for evaluating defense earmark requests.  Campaign contributions were not part of my evaluation process, and I did not have access to or knowledge of contribution information for anyone approaching our office regarding earmark requests.

The Committee also stated:  “Members are elected to serve their constituents and to legislate. Under our system of government, these duties may include appropriations requests commonly referred to as earmarks. However, simply because a Member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a Member’s actions are being influenced by campaign contributions.  As the

Supreme Court has observed in other contexts, ‘[t]o hold otherwise would open to prosecution not only conduct that has long been thought to be well within the law but also conduct that in a very real sense is unavoidable so long as election campaigns are financed by private contributions or expenditures, as they have been from the beginning of the Nation.’”

In declining to continue its investigation into two members of Congress, the Ethics Committee wrote:  “Each of the subject Members cooperated with OCE, providing detailed responses to OCE’s requests for documents. All but two of the Members and their staff were interviewed by OCE. It was in these two matters that OCE found ‘probable cause’ to recommend further review as opposed to a ‘substantial reason to believe the allegations.’  OCE’s recommendations in those two matters rested largely upon the fact that the Members, for differing reasons, were not interviewed.  In any event, neither the evidence cited in OCE’s findings for the seven Members, nor the evidence in the record before the Standards Committee, provides a substantial reason to believe the Members violated applicable standards of conduct.”