It was just 11 a.m., and we had already made 12 calls to members of the House of Representatives. We had yet to speak with a single press secretary, and it was too early for their lunch breaks.

Our task was simple: to compile a list of representatives and senators who had signed Americans for Prosperity’s Earmark Transparency Pledge. Often derogatively referred to as “pork,” earmarks consist of secretive add-on projects that benefit a select group within a representative’s district.

Sponsored by four watchdog groups, including OMB Watch, the Sunlight Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense, the Earmark Transparency Pledge requires signatories to post a list of requested earmarks on their respective Web sites. Such postings would include the names, addresses and locations of the projects, as well as the amount of funding requested, the purpose of the earmark and a guarantee that the representative does not personally benefit from it.

Since there are Examiner branches in San Francisco, Baltimore and Washington, we called representatives from California, Maryland and Virginia to see who was really willing to commit to earmark transparency.

This story continues below
Advertisement

This seemed relatively easy, because all we needed was a yes-or-no answer from the representatives’ press secretaries. We figured we would spend no more than a few hours to make all the calls and get the information.

Instead, we found ourselves getting the runaround, the D.C. equivalent of driving around Dupont Circle and passing the same Starbucks a hundred times. Every call we made was met with the same response, each with a slight variation: “The press secretary just stepped out; can I connect you to his voicemail?” “She’s actually on her lunch break right now; would you like to leave a message?” “He’s not here right now, would you like his voicemail?” And, our personal favorite, “Sorry, he’s on vacation.”

We realize that congressional press secretaries are extremely busy, but our question was far from complex. We simply wanted a “yes” or a “no.” Was that too much to ask?

On the few occasions that we did speak with actual press secretaries, they were either ignorant of the pledge, or confused and sometimes disdainful. It is ironic that the pledge itself seemed to perplex some of them; at three paragraphs, it is one of the few documents in Washington that’s actually straightforward and succinct.

Nevertheless, it was apparently challenging to comprehend for some. For example, we played phone tag with Rep. Virgil Goode’s, R-Va., office for an entire afternoon and finally faxed over a copy of the pledge. However, when we phoned the next day, we were met with newfound ignorance from Press Secretary Linwood Duncan regarding the pledge. We replied by sending it again, but we have not yet received a reply.

From Sen. Jim Webb’s, D-Va., office, we received the following courteous correspondence: “I don’t plan to make a practice of having our office/boss sign pledges from partisan interest groups that have been supplied to us by news outlets.” Though the reply wasn’t exactly friendly, at least it was a definitive answer — one of very few that we ever received.

To be fair, there were several representatives who already practice earmark transparency on their Web sites, though they didn’t sign the pledge, notably Reps. Brian Bilbray and Darrell Issa, both R-Calif., among others.

Politicians of both parties claim to be in favor of earmark transparency and gloat about how they (unlike the other party) are strongly in favor of showing taxpayers exactly where their money goes. However, very few were willing to commit to do so in writing. If representatives can’t answer a simple yes-or-no question, how do they expect to answer more complicated ones?

The truth is that no one can politically afford to look like they favor earmark concealment, but divulging all earmark information would be just as hazardous to their careers, since earmarks are often kept secret precisely because they benefit only a small minority of their constituents, including their friends. Until all representatives commit to earmark transparency on paper, pork will remain the meal of choice for many members of Congress.

Emily Mirengoff of Dartmouth and Jonathan San of William & Mary are interns at The Examiner.