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Since the Democrats reclaimed control of the House of Representatives in 2018, barrels of ink have been spilled on the topic of congressionally-directed spending. Better known as earmarks, this funding mechanism allows Members of Congress to send money directly to projects identified in their districts, largely bypassing the federal bureaucracy and its protracted grant application process. For more than a decade, the Congress has banned the practice of including congressionally-directed funding in spending bills. Now, Democrats in control of both chambers and the White House are poised to bring earmarks back. On March 17th, House Republicans voted to reverse the GOP Conferences ten year-old ban on congressionally directed spending, paving the way for Members from both parties to make requests in upcoming spending and infrastructure bills.

Two distinct varieties of earmarks have emerged in the current Congress, and the process for submitting requests is now taking shape.

Infrastructure

Last week, House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) distributed a letter to his House colleagues regarding his plan for a surface transportation authorization bill expected to move this spring. Though the formal process to submit project requests is slated to be announced later in March, the letter encourages Members of Congress to begin gathering information from around their districts. It also lays out key elements of project submissions to be considered in a highway bill or broader infrastructure package, including:

Community Project Funding

Also last week, House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) announced the Committee would accept requests for Community Project Funding. This followed up on a February memo outlining the requirements for earmark requests in FY22 appropriations bills. Beginning March 29th, the House Appropriations Committee database will be open for Members of Congress to submit Community Project Funding requests. The window will close in mid-April, with different dates and requirements for each Appropriations Subcommittee. While additional guidance from the Subcommittees is forthcoming, we know the basic and critical elements of the process, including:

Both earmark processes are going to have quick turnaround timelines. Members of Congress are already contacting local leaders to understand priorities in the district. Competition for funding will be fierce and not every project on Members wish lists will be funded. Engagement at the local, state, and federal level is crucial.

Members and applicants are going to require education and guidance from those who know how the process has worked in the past since the vast majority of Members of the House took office after the earmark ban was implemented. Moreover, many state and local leaders have not had the benefit of congressionally directed spending during their careers in public service.

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House Republicans Reverse Course on Earmarks, Congressionally Directed Spending is Back - JD Supra

2020 sucked for all of us. But it was really bad for California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

One Senate GOP aide noted that members held press conferences to push back on the bill, but that the capacity to sustain and prosecute an argument through the press wasnt there, in part because of former President Donald Trump.

We were spending the early part of the year dealing with the insurrection and impeachment trial and then we jumped right into passage, the aide said. So the attention of the D.C. media wasnt on this legislation, it was on the fallout of Jan 6.

In the absence of a cohesive strategy from congressional GOP leaders or the party apparatus, individual Republicans like Gingrich and GOP-aligned outside groups were left to mount their own attacks against Bidens American Rescue Plan. Some criticism focused on pet projects within the legislation. Others accused Democrats of using the shadow of a pandemic to expand the welfare state.

This bill was so extreme and so little about it was actually Covid relief, said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, which has accused Democrats of leveraging the latest legislative response to the Covid-19 crisis to advance partisan priorities at the expense of everyday Americans.

But other criticisms of the bill caused headaches. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), likened the bills $5 billion fund for Black farmers to reparations. And after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) slammed Democrats for opposing an amendment that would have excluded prisoners from receiving relief checks, critics were quick to point out that he voted for the second relief package last December despite knowing it contained no provision to stop inmates from receiving such payments.

None of the attack lines seemed to resonate with voters, who began receiving stimulus checks as early as last weekend and appear overwhelmingly supportive of the law. A CBS-YouGov survey released on Sunday showed 71 percent of adults believe the American Rescue Plan will benefit the middle class more than wealthy Americans. The bills passage coincides with an uptick in vaccinations and recognition from Democrats and allied teachers unions that schools need to reopen soon which together have the potential for improving the electoral landscape for Democrats as they try to keep both chambers of the Congress.

Thats left the GOP with little left to do but bank on the possibility that voters will, over time, simply forget the ways in which the law impacted them.

I think once the sugar high of the stimulus checks wears off as much as they are needed and are important the bill is going to sink itself over time, if its remembered at all, said another Senate GOP aide. Its at the peak of its popularity right now and the more it becomes unpopular well pound against them, added another.

Inside the White House, the absence of a sustained GOP pushback to the bill did not come as a particular shock.

Aides had long felt that Biden had the upper hand and that Trump had tied his own party in political knots. The former president had pushed for Congress to pass $2,000 direct checks in December and blasted Republican leaders, like then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, when they declined to include them in a relief package. He had also added trillions of dollars to the deficit through a mix of tax breaks to the wealthy and Covid-related legislation with little pushback from his party. What credible argument could Republicans attempt to put forward that would resonate with Americans and enough Democrats to block the package, Biden aides wondered.

John Anzalone, who worked as chief pollster to the Biden campaign and remains a close outside adviser, said the Republican response was both late and head-scratching. The GOP didnt push back on the bill as a deficit buster. Instead they framed it as unrelated to Covid, which Bidens team felt only alienated voters who directly tied the virus to their economic plights and saw elements of the bill like childcare tax credits and lowering healthcare costs as critical to getting past the pandemic.

This is just really mind-boggling, Anzalone said. At a time that were going through three or four crises at once, they have basically just punted. They've completely punted.

While the White House may have been pleased with the lack of a sustained pushback from Republicans, there were still questions about how to handle it. For many, Bidens pledge to be a unifying president meant that they had to at least show they were trying to win over GOP votes. And, early on, there was some genuine belief that they could get a handful.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), a Biden ally, said he was encouraged when the president sat down with 10 Republicans in the Oval Office in late February. His optimism faded however when the GOP officials, led by Maine Sen. Susan Collins, floated a $600 billion alternative. He believed that the White House would inevitably have to use reconciliation, a budget mechanism that allows for expedited passage of a bill with simple-majority approval.

But I thought what would happen once we were on that pathway is that in the end, for the final vote, that you would get maybe two, three or four Republicans, Casey added. I was not shocked, but I was a little surprised that it was unanimous against it.

Republicans used the flimsiness of Bidens outreach to decry that he had reneged on his pledge to seek a middle ground. But inside the GOP, there were concerns that process arguments werent moving the needle. A third Senate GOP aide argued that the attack lines surrounding the absence of bipartisan outreach went over the heads of most Americans.

We got beat on this one, the aide said, in a blunt assessment of their partys response.

As Republicans complained about the partisan nature of the laws construction, the White House settled on a new talking point: While the bill may not have the support of the GOP in Washington, they contended, it was still bipartisan because it was backed by a growing list of Republican governors and state and local officials who urged its passage.

On that front, they benefited from the polls, which showed healthy GOP support for the measure, and by local Republicans who, in many cases, embraced the cash that would end up flowing to their cities and states. Casey said he was on a call Friday with a bipartisan group of county commissioners. I didn't hear any of them say Hey, we don't need the money, Casey said. I didn't hear any of the (national) Republican arguments.

Asked about Republican critiques that the local government money was effectively a bailout of liberal cities like San Francisco, Jeff Williams, the mayor of Arlington, Texas, said the bill relies on an established and agreed-upon formula the federal government has used for decades.

Williams, a registered Republican, also likened the pandemic to a natural disaster, but instead of leveling homes and hollowing out businesses physically, it took a toll on the localities in an economic sense.

We didn't say it was a bailout for Houston when they suffered the flood here, Williams continued. Same thing for New Orleans when they were flooded in Hurricane Katrina. We didn't say we were bailing New Orleans out. Basically, what we're doing is taking care of a natural disaster and helping our cities, counties and states get back.

With the relief bill nearing passage during the last few weeks, Republicans recentered their messaging once again, this time to the Southern border, where a wave of migrants and unaccompanied children have overwhelmed facilities and created a new political vulnerability for Biden. But those attacks arent meant to damage the relief bill so much as move it out of the political spotlight.

They weren't a month ago thinking oh well, we're going to be rescued by the border, when Republicans voted against the package, Anzalone said. It doesn't absolve them in any way from basically being partisan and politicians in a time of economic emergency.

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Republicans on Bidens Covid bill: We bungled this one - POLITICO

WASHINGTON (AP) Delegation trips to the border. Apocalyptic warnings. A flurry of news conferences.

Republicans still divided over former President Donald Trumps legacy are seizing on his signature campaign issue, turning their focus to immigration as they try to regain the political upper hand.

Faced with President Joe Bidens early popularity, good news about vaccinations, and Americans embrace of the COVID-19 relief bill Washington Republicans opposed, the GOP is leaning in on the highly charged issue amid a spike in border crossings. They hope immigration can unite the party heading into next years elections, when control of Congress is at stake.

Heading into the midterms, I think that Republicans are increasingly realizing that this can be one of the most potent issues, both to motivate our voters, but equally as important, to appeal to swing voters especially in suburban swing districts who voted for Democrats in 2020, said former Trump aide Stephen Miller, the architect of his immigration policies. He said the issue has been a subject of discussion in his recent conversations with lawmakers as child border crossings have surged, straining U.S. facilities.

The situation at the southern border is complex. Since Bidens inauguration, the country has seen a dramatic spike in the number of people encountered by border officials, with 18,945 family members and 9,297 unaccompanied children encountered in February an increase of 168% and 63% from the month before, according to the Pew Research Center. That creates an enormous logistical challenge, since children, in particular, require higher standards of care and coordination across agencies.

Still, the encounters of both unaccompanied minors and families remain lower than at various points during the Trump administration, including in spring 2019. That May, authorities encountered more than 55,000 migrant children, including 11,500 unaccompanied minors, and around 84,500 migrants traveling in family units.

But that hasnt stopped Republicans from seizing on the issue, led by Trump himself. They blame Biden, who has been deeply critical of Trumps approach, for rolling back many of the former presidents hard-line deterrence policies. And they liken Bidens new, kinder tone to an invitation to would-be border crossers.

Theyre destroying our country. People are coming in by the hundreds of thousands, warned Trump in an interview Tuesday night with Fox News Channel. And, frankly, our country cant handle it. It is a crisis like we have rarely had and, certainly, we have never had on the border.

Its more than a crisis. This is a human heartbreak, said House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who led a delegation of a dozen fellow House Republicans to El Paso, Texas, on Monday.

This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration, he said.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a potential 2024 presidential candidate who is planning to lead his own Senate delegation tour to the Texas-Mexico border next Friday, accused the administration of having, in effect, issued an invitation for unaccompanied children to come to this country.

Even Sen. Mitt Romney, one of Trumps most prominent Republican critics, faulted Bidens moves, including the halting of construction of Trumps signature border wall project.

Whats happening at our southern border is a real crisis, and the Administration is making it worse by unlawfully freezing border wall funding appropriated by Congress, Romney tweeted after signing onto a letter with 39 other Republican senators criticizing the new approach to the border.

Democrats and immigration activists see it differently. They deride the policies Trump implemented to deter asylum as cruel and inhumane and an abdication of the countrys humanitarian responsibilities. That includes the decision to forcibly separate more than 3,000 children from their parents, with no system in place to reunite them.

But policies like Remain in Mexico, which forced asylum seekers to wait across the border as their cases were being adjudicated, and the expulsion of unaccompanied children were effective, and the number of migrants crossing the southern border declined precipitously, further slowed by the pandemic.

Beds were taken offline and staff downsized even as immigration experts on both sides of the aisle and career Homeland Security officials cautioned the numbers would likely begin to rise again once the pandemic subsided.

Advocates also note that apprehensions of single adults have been spiking since April 2020, long before Trump left office. And they accuse the last administration of enacting policies that clogged the immigration system making it take longer to move people through the system and failing to build capacity when numbers began rising. Biden transition officials, for instance, urged the outgoing administration to increase capacity, but were met with inaction. Miller said career officials theyd chosen to work with the incoming administration warned numbers would rise exponentially if policies were reversed.

This was purposeful. They made it harder for the process to work efficiently ... theres no question, said Peter Boogaard of FWD.us, a pro-immigration reform group. The Trump administration did everything in their power for four years to make the already broken immigration system as cumbersome and ineffective as possible. And once they lost, they went out of their way to do as little as humanly possible to make sure the next administration was set up to succeed on this at all.

In an interview with ABC News George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday, Biden defended his handling of the situation. He said his administration was working with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to add more bed space, putting together new systems for connecting arriving children with relatives already in the country, and setting up a system for people to apply for asylum in their own countries.

In the meantime, he urged those considering the journey to stay put. Yes, I can say quite clearly: Dont come over, he said. Dont leave your town or city or community.

In the meantime, Republicans see Biden as boxed-in politically, with limited options for dealing with the border.

The administration has said that basically, everything that we did you name the policy ... they said that all of them are fill-in-the-blank adjective. Theyve described them in the most incendiary and condemnatory fashion possible, said Miller. And obviously my view is, of course, the opposite. But the point that Im making is when you do that you give yourself no room to adjust course. ... You leave yourself nowhere to go.

Theyre kind of stuck in a corner, agreed Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies think tank, which advocates on behalf of more restrictive immigration policies. Because Biden ran as the anti-Trump, he argued, the president has few options for deterring future migrants.

And thats why youre seeing so much glee, in some respect, he said. It is a kind of delicious irony that Bidens having to reopen detention centers that Trump had closed because he succeeded in shutting down the traffic.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a longtime Trump ally, said he expects the border to become a top issue if the numbers continue to grow.

If they dont control this, itll be a huge issue this year, and its an issue that gets you into public health, into the issue of defending America and whether there are borders, he said.

___ Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

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Republicans seize on immigration as border crossings surge - The Associated Press

The Guardian

Trump ally was not part of the 6 January riot but he had numerous contacts with key far-right groups and figures involved Roger Stone is seen with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in Washington DC on 11 December 2020. Photograph: Amy Harris/REX/Shutterstock As the federal investigation of the 6 January Capitol insurrection expands, scrutiny of Donald Trumps decades-long ally Roger Stone is expected to intensify, given his links to at least four far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who had been charged, plus Stones incendiary comments at rallies the night before the riot and in prior weeks, say ex-prosecutors and Stone associates Although Stone was not part of the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob that shocked America, the self-styled dirty trickster who was convicted on seven counts in the Russia investigations into the 2016 elections but later pardoned by Trump had numerous contacts with key groups and figures involved in the riot in the weeks before and just prior to its start. The night before the riot, Stone spoke at a Washington DC Rally to Save America where the former presidents unfounded claims that the election was stolen by Democrats were pushed and Stone urged an epic struggle for the future of this country, between dark and light, between the godly and the godless, between good and evil. Early on 6 January, Stone was seen in cellphone videos near a Washington hotel hanging out with six members of the far-right militia Oath Keepers serving as his bodyguards, including three who have been charged in the federal investigation. Stone, according to Mother Jones, also raised funds for private security events on 5 January and 6 January before the Capitol attack, which included a rambling talk by Trump urging his supporters to fight like hell. Back on 12 December, Stone also spoke at a Stop the Steal rally that amplified Trumps erroneous claims of massive election fraud, and urged hundreds of Trump loyalists to fight until the bitter end Never give up, never quit, never surrender, and fight for America, Stone implored the crowd Congressional investigators looking into the far-right Proud Boys, including some charged in the riot, have also reportedly been looking into ties that Stone had with their leaders Enrique Tarrio and Ethan Nordean, who were seen in a video in contact with Stone at another demonstration in DC the night before the December 12 rally, according to Just Security Nordean is one of at least a dozen Proud Boys who have been charged so far in the riot investigation, and one of several who are facing conspiracy charges Tarrio, who attended Stones trial and had other contacts with him, was arrested in DC two days before the riot and charged with setting fire in December to a Black Lives Matter flag and for carrying high capacity magazines for weapons Back in 2016, Stone first set up the group Stop the Steal which raised false claims that the election would be stolen from Trump, a baseless charge that grew exponentially post election in 2020 to try to undermine Bidens victory. Last year Trump railed against Stones conviction in the Russia inquiry which included lying to Congress and drew a 40-month jail sentence. But shortly before Stone was to enter prison in mid 2020 Trump commuted his sentence, and in December gave him a full pardon. Members of the Oath Keepers provide security to Roger Stone in Washington DC on 5 January. Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reuters Former senior prosecutors say that Stone could be a growing focus of the federal inquiry of the riot which has already charged more than 300 people including at least a dozen Proud Boys and 10 Oath Keepers for illegal acts related to their roles in the Capitol attack. Prosecutors follow the facts and evidence where they lead, and certainly should be investigating any connections between Stone and those who were responsible for the insurrection on January 6, Mary McCord, a veteran prosecutor who led the national security division at Justice at the end of the Obama administration until May 2017, said in an interview Other ex-prosecutors go further and see Stone as a potential target. As a result of the pardon corruptly granted by Trump, it would not be surprising for Roger Stone to become a federal prosecutors holy grail, said Phil Halpern, who retired last year after 36 years as an assistant US attorney who specialized in corruption cases. In this quest, the charged Oath Keepers and Proud Boys are merely pawns leading to the ultimate prize. Rest assured, prosecutors will be dangling lenient treatment and other inducements in return for any testimony implicating Stone in the Capitol riot. But some ex-prosecutors caution that charging Stone will be difficult absent direct evidence of an intent to commit or aid and abet treason or seditious conspiracy, said Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the justice departments fraud section The Washington Post and other outlets have reported that Stone and Alex Jones, the host of the conspiracy driven InfoWars talk show where Stone has often appeared as a guest and promoted disinformation, are being investigated related to their ties with figures in the riot and if they had any role in its planning. Jones, who has boasted he paid $500,000 for the rally on 6 January, and Stone have had close links since at least the 2016 campaign, when Stone spoke glowingly of Jones declaring in an interview that his show is the major source of everything. In an email, Stone vehemently denied having anything to do with the Capitol riot. Any statement, claim, insinuation, or report alleging, or even implying, that I had any involvement in or knowledge, whether advance or contemporaneous, about the commission of any unlawful acts by any person or group in or around the US Capitol or anywhere in Washington DC on January 6, 2021, is categorically false. Stone has previously said that he simply wanted to spur peaceful protests of Congress on 6 January and stressed that he denounced the violence at the Capitol. On his website, StoneColdTruth, he has launched appeals to help with legal expenses by requesting checks for the STONE LEGAL DEFENSE FUND to help prepare to fend off this malicious assault on me once again. Stones denials notwithstanding, some former lobbying partners of his at Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly voice dismay at his decades long fealty to Trump, a client of the firm in the 1980s, about a decade after Stone earned notoriety for playing a small part in the scandal-ridden 1972 Richard Nixon campaign. Roger has been totally devoted to Trump for over 30 years and that has clouded his judgment about his own ethical values and led to a criminal conviction, said Charlie Black in an interview. Im not surprised that the devotion is still there, even post-election and post-pardon. Similarly, ex-Stone partner Peter Kelly said hes been shocked by Stones recent drive to discredit the election results and similar efforts by Michael Flynn, who was also convicted in the Russia inquiry and pardoned by Trump. To see people like Gen Flynn and Stone who just escaped a serious encounter with the law, walking the edge again is stunning, Kelly said in an interview. In 2016, Kelly blasted Stones modus operandi, telling the Guardian that Roger operates by a different set of rules, and his object is to disrupt. He traffics in the unusual.

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Pelosi baited Republicans by collecting positive news coverage about Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus deal from their districts - Yahoo News

Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse voted Thursday in favor of the American Dream and Promise Act, which would provide legal status for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, as well as those with Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure.

The bill passed the House on a 228 to 197 vote. Newhouse was one of nine Republicans to support the bill.

Elected to a fourth term in November, Newhouse has long supported legal status for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children, often referred to as Dreamers, and pushed to make the DACA program permanent.

Newhouse said he had concerns about the bill mainly, that it doesnt address a surge of migrants coming through the U.S.-Mexico border. He voted for the bill in hopes the issue could be addressed while the bill is in the Senate and provide a permanent solution for DACA recipients, including those in Central Washington.

Congress cannot keep kicking this can down the road, and until we have a comprehensive solution signed into law, these young people who were brought to this country at no fault of their own will continue to suffer, Newhouse said in a written statement.

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Newhouse one of 9 Republicans to vote in favor of American Dream and Promise Act - Yakima Herald-Republic