....A timeworn bit of political wisdom has been that larding one’s district with pork projects can act as an incumbency protection program. And the Republican leaders in Congress ardently followed that principle.
“The leadership talked all the time about how we’ve got to use earmarks to help these vulnerable members,” said Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who has become one of Washington’s loudest opponents of earmarking. “But what this election showed was that earmarks just aren’t that important to voters....”
....Representative Deborah Pryce of Ohio, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, issued dozens of news releases over the last 18 months boasting of the projects she brought home to a district that is considered evenly divided between the two parties.
There was $2.27 million to convert a mountain of garbage into a green energy center, $1.1 million to help keep residents of a fast-growing suburb from having to pay more in user fees for a new sewage system, and the latest installment in $2.7 million in federal disbursements to “evaluate freeze-dried berries for their ability to inhibit cancer.”
In a spending bill that never passed the most recent session of Congress, Ms. Pryce’s district stood to get the largest single earmark in Ohio — $1.75 million for a health research institute. In total, the Columbus area lined up about $4.5 million in special money.
By comparison, Portland, Ore. — a similar-sized metropolitan area with no contested Congressional seats — was to receive $625,000 in earmarks.
Ms. Pryce won by barely a thousand votes....
Pryce won this time, but her "press releases" did not help her maintain the margin of victory she enjoyed in the past elections. Voters have realized that Pryce's boasting did not deliver the thousands of jobs or the economic re-vitalization she promised. The next time you read another "press release" from Pryce's congressional office, keep in mind that it is just a bunch of baloney.
Pryce won this time, but her "press releases" did not help her maintain the margin of victory she enjoyed in the past elections. Voters have realized that Pryce's boasting did not deliver the thousands of jobs or the economic re-vitalization she promised. The next time you read another "press release" from Pryce's congressional office, keep in mind that it is just a bunch of baloney.