WASHINGTON -- Democrats took control of Congress with promises to shine a brighter light on the workings of government, including the time-honored practice of planting pet projects deep inside spending bills. But among Marylanders, it is the Republicans who are taking the lead in removing the cloak of secrecy.
For the first time in his 14 years in Washington, Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett of Western Maryland announced the proposals he'll try to get funded. Fellow Republican Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest produced a list when asked. But the rest of Maryland's delegation in Congress, all Democrats, are keeping quiet until their requests become public.
All are grappling with public expectations surrounding the federal dollars that lawmakers seek for highway construction, community centers, university research and other projects in their home districts and states -- known as earmarks. While there's nothing new about the practice, an explosion in the number approved over the past decade has spurred growing calls for transparency.
"The first thing to recognize about the situation now is that there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty for almost everybody involved," said Roy T. Myers, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and former Congressional Budget Office analyst. "I think a lot of members really don't know what they should be doing."
Bartlett has joined a growing number -- most of them Republicans -- in volunteering his wish list. The 50 items range from $39,000 to restore the train station in the Allegany County city of Westernport to $25 million for a naval weapons system in which a Flintstone, Md., company has a role.
"We've got nothing to hide," said Bartlett, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who devoted nearly two-thirds of his requests to military expenditures. "Many of the members won't put them out because they don't get them all, and they think somebody's going to say, 'Gee, you aren't very effective.' But we know ahead of time that we're not going to get all of those. I just wanted to show that I'm very proud of our earmarks."
Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger is taking a different tack. At a meeting in Linthicum last week, the Baltimore County Democrat told local officials that he was seeking $74 million for roads, sewers and other infrastructure to accommodate the expansion of Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground. But he declined to release his complete list.
"When you put out earmarks, it not only raises expectations but it's also confusing," said Ruppersberger, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which decides how much gets spent. Much of the money that is requested, he said, "is not going to come to our state, it's not in the budget bill, and it's all part of the process."
Citizens Against Government Waste has asked all 535 members of Congress to release their requests. As of Friday, 56 had complied, according to the Washington-based independent group's Web site.
"The requests tell you a whole lot about what the members' mentality is, what they want to get, what they're trying to get," said Leslie K. Paige, a spokeswoman for the group. "It's a very interesting window into their attitude and their culture."
Among those who have released their requests are Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, and Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat running for president. Others, including House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, say they are not seeking earmarks.
Still others say they want to keep their requests to themselves until they can be reasonably sure that they have a chance at becoming law.
"I'd like to see what is funded," said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Baltimore Democrat. "The public will know at that time."
Rep. John Sarbanes said "a lot of factors come into play" in deciding which requests to pursue. "To preserve independence in judging the priorities of the community, it makes sense to release the status of the projects as they become part of a given piece of legislation," the Baltimore County Democrat said in an e-mail message.
Earmarks account for less than 1 percent of the federal budget. But the increase in their number, from 4,126 in 1994 to 15,268 in 2005, and projects such as the "bridge to nowhere" -- the $223 million span proposed to connect a sparsely populated island in Alaska to the mainland -- have helped to focus public outrage.
Paige said earmarks enable politicians "to legally bribe their constituents into voting for them again. ... We want them to stop."
Others say the discussion is much ado about little. Josh Gordon, a senior policy analyst for the independent Concord Coalition, calls it is a distraction from the funding crises looming before Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
"It's just not a lot of money, so it doesn't have any real effect on fiscal policy," he said. "Our main concern about earmarks is that they divert attention. ... People get so worked up about it that they're not able to see the larger issue, which is the entitlement spending program, which makes these earmarks look infinitesimal."
Still, they have gripped Washington, where House Republicans threatened to hold up the budget process last month after the Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Committee appeared to backtrack on promises of transparency.
Saying that his committee had been overwhelmed by more than 32,000 requests, Rep. David R. Obey of Wisconsin said he would not attach earmarks to spending bills until they had been approved by the full House. Republicans complained that the delay would deprive members of the opportunity to challenge individual projects on the House floor.
Finally, the sides agreed that projects and the lawmakers requesting them would be included in the bills after they were approved by the committee, before they hit the floor. The Senate is following a similar procedure.
matthew.brown@baltsun.com