If you read Part I last week, you’d know why that’s not exactly true. Special interest groups - who pay the lobbyists - who hob-nob the Congressmen - who slide in the unauthorized Rain Forests and Yarn Museums while the rest of us aren’t looking – all know how earmarks work.

So, it should come as no surprise that this week, even in the midst of the mad dash to enact bold reforms, Congress has yet again overlooked a very large loophole in the earmarking and lobbying process: Taxpayer-funded lobbying.

In theory, each of us elects two senators and the allotted number of House members to represent our interests in the nation’s capital. In practice, the state and local governments we live under, as well as public universities, water districts and other publicly-funded organizations, combine to spend millions if not billions – much, if not all of it taxpayer money – lobbying Congress or hiring outside lobbyists to do it for them. Many times, this lobbying doesn’t even represent the interests of the local taxpayers; it’s merely a sparkle in a local bureaucrat’s eye.

Taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be the petty cash from which local and state governments pull to promote projects, especially when those projects don’t even benefit the majority of taxpayers, but loopholes in Congressional lobbying rules actually encourage this behavior.

That’s right. The gift limits that apply to everyone else – you, me, even Jack Abramoff – don’t apply to state and local governments. In fact, House and Senate Ethics Rules (House Ethics Rule 25 (Clause 5(a)(3)(O); Senate Ethics Rule 35 (16)) specifically single out and exempt lobbyists for federal, state and local government agencies from the $50 gift limit that the rest of us have to abide by. Not only is this absurdly unfair, it’s absurd to expect the taxpayer to subsidize the process. Think about it; these lobbyists are being paid with taxpayer dollars to lobby Congress Members, who will then turn around and insert sneaky and expensive earmarks into appropriation bills, which will then have to be paid for with more taxpayer dollars. Talk about a vicious cycle - not to mention a real distortion of the democratic process!

To call this a loophole is an understatement; it’s nothing less than the Grand Canyon of lobbying abuse, glaring Congress smack in the face.

Yet, despite this obviously unfair, undemocratic, unbelievable section of the Rules, the recent lobbying reform proposals – put out by both the Republicans and Democrats – do absolutely nothing to change this asinine exemption.

You might say, “So what? How much harm can a few local bureaucrats and university presidents do?” Well, as they say, the proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the shiitake mushrooms.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Congress directed more than $2 billion to earmarks at colleges and universities in 2003. The University of Alaska at Fairbanks and the University of Hawaii-Manoa each got $250,000 to catalog historical records in preparation for their states’ celebration, in 2009, of the 50th anniversary of statehood. The University of Missouri at Columbia, acquired $1.7 million for research on cultivating shiitake mushrooms. Yes, mushrooms.

Remember, Congress does not require these earmarked projects to go through the open, peer-reviewed competitions that federal agencies typically use to award money for scientific research and other projects in higher education. In those competitions, agency employees who are experts in particular fields oversee the awarding of grants and contracts to colleges, based on merit.

Because of the taxpayer-funded lobbying loophole, one might surmise that members of Congress and their aides choose recipients of these directed grants based on their own judgments, often after lobbying by the colleges seeking the money. As a result, earmarked funds very well may go to scientific-research projects that are not of the highest quality and do not serve national priorities.

Talk about a misuse of power and taxpayer money.

As for state and local entities, the situation is not much better. Take the Utah Transit Authority for example. What would ordinarily seem like a relatively innocuous unit of government actually spent more than $1.6 million on federal lobbyists in 2003 alone. If that’s how much taxpayer money goes toward lobbying in Utah – the 41st state in population density – just imagine how much the Transit Authority might have spent in New Jersey (1st in population density), not to mention all the rest of the so-called “Authorities” populating the 50 states’ state and local governments.

Clearly these loopholes are extremely unfair to the American taxpayer. They grant taxpayer-funded lobbyists an exclusive right to ignore the gift limit and use hard-earned taxpayer dollars to convince Senators and Representatives to earmark even more hard-earned taxpayer dollars for their wasteful, arcane pet projects that may not even reflect the true needs or wants of their constituents (I doubt the good people of Columbia, Missouri would put shiitake mushrooms at the top of their priority list, let alone their grocery list). If our elected officials on Capitol Hill are serious about curbing wasteful spending and reforming lobbying rules, they should immediately close these loopholes when they return to Washington.

Originally published on Townhall.com on January 20th, 2006

By Julie Kesselman

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