How corrupt is our Congress? They’re not even pretending to follow the Constitution.
Talking Points Memo reports on how Rep. Don Young (R-AK) inserted an earmark to spend $10 million on a highway interchange in Florida (“Coconut Road”) to benefit real estate developer Daniel Aranoff, a few days after Aranoff raised $40,000 for Young.
The really interesting part is not an Alaskan legislator doing political favors for contributions from a Florida developer, but the fact that the earmark was not in the version of the bill that passed the House or Senate–it was added to the bill during the enrollment process, after its passage but before being signed by President Bush. This is a process which is only supposed to allow correction of typographical and technical but non-substantive errors.
Historical Comments
Perhaps the author of the earmark does not consider the amount of $10 million to be substantative.