Walz supports earmark reform legislation

The Walz congressional office sent the following press release about earmark reform:

Walz Co-sponsors Legislation to Require Transparency in Congressional Earmark Process
Legislation would require all Members to make public information similar to what Walz already discloses

(Washington D.C) - After taking the unusual step for the last two years of releasing his appropriation requests to the public, Congressman Walz announced today that he is supporting two pieces of legislation in Congress that will change the way all Members of Congress request federal money and require all Members of Congress to follow his lead in making their earmark requests transparent and publically available.

"The appropriations process has been abused in the past, so I believe it should be completely in the light of day," said Walz, who was the only member of the Minnesota Congressional delegation to publicly release his appropriations requests last year. "The Democratic Majority implemented new rules last year that require each Member's name to be attached to any request that is funded, and Members of Congress must publicly certify that they do not have any financial interest in the project they are requesting. Those were great first steps."

Walz continued, "In order for all Members of Congress to be more transparent and accountable for the money they are requesting, I have co-sponsored two bills introduced in Congress by Representatives Boyda and Kind. This legislation would require unprecedented transparency from all Members of Congress and would create a bipartisan, independent commission to examine congressional and executive earmark practices."

Representative Boyda's resolution (H.Res 1072 ) would require all Representatives to disclose their requests for federal earmarks on their Congressional websites within 24 hours.   Each description must include the earmark's proposed recipient, the amount requested, the project name, and additional background information.

Representatives Kind's bill, the Earmark Reform Commission Act of 2008 (H. Res 5755) would establish a newly formed commission to investigate the use of earmarks and recommend to Congress additional reforms that may be necessary.

We wrote about this topic in a post last week.