Worms in the Pork

‘Twas the season to be generous, if not jolly, on Capitol Hill. In its preholiday I dash toward adjournment, the lameduck Congress bestowed dozens of baubles, bangles and beads on the folks (and special-interest groups) back home. The result, fumed Silvio Conte, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, was “a Christmas tree.”

Many of the ornaments came in the form of amendments to the continuing-spending resolution and gas-tax bill. Senator Howell Heflin, an Alabama Democrat, tucked in a $1 million appropriation for channel-widening at the Franklin Ferry Bridge in his home state. John Melcher, Democratic Senator from Montana, hooked a $243,000 fish hatchery for his, and Louisiana Senator Russell Long pushed through a $5 million cloverleaf project outside Baton Rouge Even Senator William Proxmire, the Wisconsin Democrat, famed for his “Golden Fleece” awards for Government waste, rammed through a $1.5 million poverty-studies program at the University of Wisconsin and $100 million to have a Navy minesweeper built in his home state.

“The King of Pork,” as North Dakota Senator Mark Andrews is known to colleagues, persuaded a House-Senate conference committee to reinstate a water-diversion project back home after it had been overwhelmingly defeated in the House. “Those guys knew damn well Andrews would stop their pet projects in the future,” says Conte. “They ran like scared rabbits.”

Cable-television operators, assisted by Georgia Senator Mack Mattingly (who was looking out for Atlanta Cable Magnate Ted Turner), got a reprieve from having to pay higher royalty fees on network programming. At the insistence of Kansas Senator Robert Dole, who was lobbied by the National Rifle Association, gun purveyors were exempted from recording sales of .22 cal. rimfire ammunition.

Why are end-of-session bills traditional targets for pork-barrel amendments? “They’re the last trains out of the station,” explained Massachusetts Congressman James Shannon. Normal debate and decorum were all but abandoned. Some of the Senate amendments to the omnibus spending bill were handwritten. Even after the Senate voted on the amendments, few members knew what action had been taken. When the final 300-page spending bill emerged from the House and Senate conference committee, pasted together and hastily photocopied only 35 copies were circulated to the 435 House members voting on the measure Not that it mattered. “By the end of the session,” sighed Shannon, “no one wants to see any more fine print.”