Word: demint
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...their families financially benefit from those earmarks. It's that provision focusing on earmarks - measures that lawmakers have typically quietly inserted into legislation at the last minute to allot money for pet projects in their home states - that has drawn the loudest criticism from two conservatives, Sen. Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, as well as House Minority Leader John Boehner, who have derided the measure as mostly ineffective...
...reform while still leaving open loopholes. "If you want to fix what's wrong in Congress, you have to make the earmarking process completely transparent. We had a great strong bill in January and they gutted it." That bill, which passed the Senate almost unanimously, had stalled after Sen. DeMint blocked a conference committee from meeting to discuss and reconcile the bill's House and Senate versions because of his concerns that the earmarking provisions would be watered down...
...DeMint and Coburn are unhappy with a rule that would allow Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and his committee chairmen - rather than the body?s parliamentarian - to determine whether earmark disclosure rules have been complied with. It's a technical point, admits DeMint, but a key one. "One of the reasons Americans have such a low opinion of Congress is that we pretend to do things that we don't actually do, and here we are just pretending to pass real reform," he said. "The [majority] leader can just say that no new earmarks have been added...
...That sentiment is pretty common in the halls of Congress these days, but there remains a bipartisan, if bite-sized, opposition. The only Senator to dissent during the Commerce Committee's hearing was Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican, who complained that American business would be more competitive if Senators stopped "attacking China" and instead reformed torts, America's "Byzantine tax system" and its excessive regulation of business. Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell, meanwhile, was the only Senator to vote against the Finance Committee's bill, arguing it would be "interpreted as protectionism" by the Chinese, and could prompt them...
...immigration, Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina accused the President of trying to "ram [reform] down America's throat," but the White House was quick to fire back. It held a conference call to emphasize support (albeit mostly Democratic) for the bill, which then cleared a major hurdle on June 25 in the Senate. "The status quo is unacceptable," a White House aide told reporters...