Coburn is after bigger game trying to eliminate $3.7 million in grants to labor unions requested by Harkin and Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Coburn also seeks to remove $1.7 million added to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to fund a Hollywood liaison to advise doctor dramas and $5.1 million for "audio visual integration" in the CDC's new Thomas R. Harkin communications and visitor center.
In the previous money bill (Commerce, Justice and Science) before the Senate, Coburn on Oct. 4 tried to redirect $2.5 million in earmarks -- mainly for museums -- to fund prosecution of unsolved civil rights cases. It failed 61 to 31. On Sept. 12, Coburn lost, 63 to 32, in seeking to eliminate six out of 600 earmarks in the Transportation-HUD appropriations. They included such pork as a new baseball stadium in Billings, Mont., from the bill. He was beaten 82 to 14 in attempting to defer all earmarks until defective bridges were repaired.
Democratic party-line voting belies claims of a new climate on Capitol Hill with the change in control of Congress. On the typical 61 to 31 vote, only two Democrats -- Evan Bayh of Indiana and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin -- voted against earmarks. But Coburn also was opposed by 17 Republicans (including Mel Martinez of Florida, the party's general chairman, and top GOP members of the Appropriations Committee).
After the customary overwhelming defeat on the Transportation-HUD bill, Coburn blamed the Minnesota bridge failure on Congress: "We failed to make good decisions. We failed to direct dollars where they were needed most because this body is obsessed with parochial pork-barrel politics." Other senators hate it when the plain-spoken obstetrician from Muskogee, Okla., talks that way, but they figure hardly anybody -- including the news media -- is listening.