Boehner Versus McConnell: The Earmark Showdown

The incoming House speaker, Ohio Republican Rep. John Boehner, has long opposed lawmakers’ tendency to include earmarks for parochial projects in annual spending bills, and wants to end the practice. South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the party purist who helped elect a handful of conservative tea party-backed candidates Tuesday, has vowed to offer an earmark moratorium during the next Senate Republican Conference meeting on Nov. 16.

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, along with other Senate leaders from both parties, say that earmarking is a constitutional right and senatorial privilege and show little interest in relinquishing the decades-long practice of inserting pet projects into appropriations bills.