When earmarks were a regular feature of congressional business, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said Democrats and Republicans were able to cut more deals and pass more bills with bipartisan support.
“This used to be time where everybody was ‘Hallelujah,’ I mean Republicans, Democrats, dancing, kissing. This is the time to be saved,” he recalled at a congressional hearing earlier this year in regards to legislation like the highway bill.
Cleaver served on the bipartisan Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress that was established by Democrats after they won control of the House in 2018. One of the conclusions issued in the committee’s final report released in October: Bring back earmarks. (The committee ditched the term ‘earmark’ for a new ‘Community-Focused Grant Program.’)
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