Earmarks Are Back. So Are Republican Fights About Them.

A series of scandals gave earmarks a bad name roughly two decades ago, but they are making a comeback ahead of the 2026 midterms. Republicans, who banned the practice of steering billions to specific projects in 2011, are split about the latest revival.

Democrats reinstated them in 2021, and GOP lawmakers are feuding about including them as Congress considers a series of spending bills this month. For some, allowing members to carve out money for roads or local development needs collides with the party’s vow to slash federal spending. For others, it’s a way to demonstrate to their constituents that they can deliver.

Congress’ work this month on a series of appropriations bills is spotlighting the latest requests from members of both parties for “Community Funding Projects.” And the debate comes as lawmakers bump up against a Jan. 30 funding deadline. Last week, conservatives opposed — and eventually pulled — a $1 million earmark in an appropriations minibus requested by Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar for the Somali community in Minneapolis.

It prompted Rep. Chip Roy, a proponent of shrinking the government, to call earmarks “the currency of corruption.” House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, a proponent of the practice, was concerned the debate over one earmark could jeopardize the entire bill.

Cole told NOTUS — after coming out of a meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson and a group of appropriators on Wednesday to get “guidance” from the speaker amid appropriations negotiations — that earmarks take on more importance when the GOP has such a slim majority in the House.

“When the seats are close, we seem to think they’re helpful,” Cole said of earmarks. “I’m very comfortable with them. We scrub them pretty hard, and, honestly, the Democrats do, too. We operate on the same set of rules.”

Requests for Community Project Funding have a number of guidelines, according to the House Appropriations Committee, including that they can’t go toward for-profit entities, memorials, museums and commemoratives. Subcommittee chairs are tasked with further vetting the projects. There is also a 15-request limit per member and an overall funding cap. Guidance in the Senate is similar.

Still, many deficit hawks and conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus view earmarks as a corrupt and wasteful practice that shouldn’t have been resurrected. Rep. Ralph Norman reintroduced a bill on Tuesday that would ban earmarks from appropriations bills, saying in a statement that “earmarks have become a way for Washington insiders to steer taxpayer dollars to pet projects instead of prioritizing fiscal responsibility.”

Rep. Victoria Spartz blasted earmarks as “a lot of wasted money” and a tactic to buy votes from lawmakers. Rep. Eric Burlison told NOTUS that “there are a lot of corrupt earmarks.”

Another conservative, Rep. Andy Ogles, said earmarks have been “abused” to fund “pet programs” that the government shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

“Most earmarks are wasteful outside of critical infrastructure,” Ogles told NOTUS.

Rep. Josh Brecheen, a House Freedom Caucus member from Oklahoma, told NOTUS he’s “majorly opposed” to earmarks and stressed he campaigned against them.

“I buy into the concept that earmarks are a way of moving a potential ‘no’ vote on something to a potential ‘yes’ vote.” He also blamed them for driving up federal spending, saying, “I believe there’s a correlation between more government spending that otherwise would not happen without earmarks.”

But since earmarks are back, even the chairman of the Freedom Caucus is asking for them anyway.

“I don’t think we should have any, but as I’ve said, if we’re gonna have them, then I’ll request them, but I think we should just eliminate earmarks,” Rep. Andy Harris told NOTUS, “because it’s usually pork barrel spending.”

Other House Republicans maintained that earmarks — with proper guardrails — are a way to keep federal funds away from unelected bureaucrats and liberal priorities.

“I would not want to see earmarks to go to abortion hospitals or anything like that, but as long as they’re common sense for economic development and to be helpful to a constituent’s district, then I don’t have a problem with them,” Rep. Robert Aderholt, a senior appropriator, told NOTUS.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican, told NOTUS that he witnessed “abuse that led to a lot of arrests” during his time running the FBI’s public corruption unit.

“I’m suspect of them, but if done the right way — I think there’s got to be a lot of guardrails around the process. That’s what I’m a big believer of,” Fitzpatrick said.

Several lawmakers pointed to Congress’ constitutional power of the purse, though due to decades of a dysfunctional appropriations process, much of that power has waned. Earmarks, some argued, are a way for members to claw back that power.

“The only real lever the legislative branch has in the three branches of government is the ability to appropriate, and so to give members of that branch some direct appropriation ability, within guidelines or whatever, I think is a very healthy thing,” senior appropriator Rep. Mark Amodei told NOTUS.

Rep. Kevin Hern, chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, told NOTUS he’s never requested an earmark. But he can see the practice is on the rise. He said he believes it helps retain congressional power over spending rather than delegating it to the executive branch, “no matter who is in the office.”

“There’s been some really tight controls put on it. I think that’s when you see more members of their party buying on to that,” Hern said of earmarks. “That’s something you’re going to see more and more of until possibly every member of the Republican Party are doing so.”