The House of Representatives overwhelmingly rejected a measure Thursday evening that would eliminate $1.3 billion in earmarks from a government funding package.
Lawmakers voted 291 to 136 on the amendment offered by leading fiscal hawk Republican South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, falling well short of a majority. Norman’s amendment would have nixed all of the earmarks in the Labor-Health and Human Services (HHS) bill, which contained funding for several entities that perform sex-change procedures for minors and late-term abortions.
“These earmarks are against every conservative value that is known,” Norman said on the House floor Thursday prior to the vote.
The vote notably divided the House Republican conference with 136 GOP lawmakers voting “yes” and 76 Republicans joining all Democrats who voted in opposing the effort to strip the earmarks from the funding package.
Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, Republicans’ top appropriator, was among the GOP lawmakers who voted against Norman’s amendment.
Nine Republicans did not vote — including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer and Republican Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr — despite being present for the marathon session of voting.
Heritage Action urged Republicans to vote “yes” and criticized GOP lawmakers for inserting their own earmarks into the bill.
“In demanding earmarks of their own, Republicans have opened the door to Democrats to direct taxpayer funds to entities engaged in practices that most GOP voters find abhorrent,” Heritage Action wrote.
The Labor-HHS bill passed the Senate within a larger government funding package Thursday in a vote of 341-88. The package now heads to the Senate where conservative members could try to hold up the funding bills over the inclusion of earmarks.
One earmark sharply criticized by conservatives would allocate $2 million to Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, California, for “pediatric mental health services.” The hospital — San Diego County’s sole pediatric medical center — operates a “Center for Gender-Affirming Care,” which performs various sex-change procedures, according to the nonprofit Do No Harm.
“The funds used for pediatric mental health will almost certainly go towards sponsoring the gender transition of children or at least free up other funds for that effort,” analysts for the conservative Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) wrote Tuesday.
Conservative Republicans also blasted a $3 million earmark for Minnesota’s Hennepin Healthcare System to build a substance use disorder treatment clinic. The hospital system also operates a pediatric clinic offering puberty blockers and hormone therapies to children.
Another notable earmark, requested by by Democratic Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, would allocate $375,000 for “arts education” at the Massachusetts-based dancer center Jacob’s Pillow. The organization says diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) principles “animate our mission and inform the vitality of our daily operations.”
Norman reintroduced legislation in January that would permanently ban all earmarks in government funding bills.
“For too long, earmarks have become a way for Washington insiders to steer taxpayer dollars to pet projects instead of prioritizing fiscal responsibility,” Norman said in a statement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has touted his efforts to return the House to regular order and pass all 12 appropriations bills ahead of the Jan. 30 funding deadline.
“There were a lot of people, and I think many in this room, that argued that this could not be done – that a regular appropriations process is a thing of the past,” Johnson said during a press conference Wednesday. “I’m happy to report that all those prognostications were flat wrong, and we’ve gotten it done.”
“Once we pass the final batch this week, Republicans will have finally replaced the last of any Biden-era spending levels with Trump-era spending levels,” Johnson continued. “No more Biden and Pelosi negotiated budgets. We’ve turned that page and we are not turning back.”
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