Lawmakers vote against stimulus, seek funding anyway

In a report this week, the Center for Public Integrity called attention to members of Congress who voted against the multi-billion dollar stimulus bill in 2009, then tried behind the scenes to get funding allocated to hometown projects.

"Scores of Republicans and conservative Democrats who voted against the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act subsequently wrote letters requesting funds for projects in a massive, behind-the-scenes letter-writing and phone call campaign," the investigative reporting center said citing documents compiled for the project it called "Stimulating Hypocrisy."

Among them was Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. In voting against the bill he said it would end up costing more than $1 trillion, included reckless spending and would do little to help homeowners and small business.

But Ensign subsequently wrote a letter to the Energy Department seeking grant money for Reno-based Altair Nanotechnologies to expand its battery production.  

He also wrote letters to the Department of Commerce for a broadband grant for Lyon County, and another for the Nevada Hospital Association.

Ensign also wrote a letter to the Department of Transportation in support of funding for bus rapid transit in Las Vegas. 

Spokeswoman Jennifer Cooper defended Ensign's actions.

"Nevada is at a great disadvantage when it comes to federal funds returning to our state," she said in an email.  "The stimulus bill passed, and Senator Ensign voted against it because it wasn't the right way to repair our economy.

"That said, there is a pot of money that has been allocated to states to fund programs, and Senator Ensign fights to get Nevada its fair share," Cooper said. "He advocated on behalf of these entities, at their request, for federal grants that would have otherwise gone to states that already receive the bulk of these funds."

The practice of lawmakers trying to influence bureaucrats after a bill has been passed and signed into law has become known as "lettermarking."  In the case of the stimulus bill, President Barack Obama said it did not contain congressionally inserted earmarks to steer funding to pet projects.

But once the legislation was enacted, lawmakers from both parties initiated letters to federal agencies intended to influence how the money would be allocated, the center found.

"Using both federal agency sources and the Freedom of Information Act, the Center collected a stack of letters a foot high detailing nearly 2,000 requests from lawmakers in both parties to secure funding from a law designed to stimulate the sagging economy," it said. "The Center obtained a total of more than 1,500 of these letters from just three departments: Transportation, Energy, and Commerce."

For Nevada, the center located letters to federal agencies penned by Sen. Harry Reid and Reps. Dina Titus and Shelley Berkley. All are Democrats who voted for the bill.

Reid sent a half dozen letters to the Commerce Department in support of broadband grant applications from Nevada counties, the Las Vegas-Clark County Urban League, the town of Pahrump and for telemedicine initiative sought by the Nevada Hospital Association.

Reid, an outspoken defender of congressional earmarks, had no hesitation to urge the Commerce Department to fund Nevada grants, according to spokeswoman Meredith MacKenzie.

“Organizations from across Nevada worked very hard to present  strong applications for Recovery Act funding," MacKenzie said. "In his position as majority leader and Nevada’s senior senator, Sen. Reid advocated for these projects in letters of support and now many of those same projects are expanding their work and creating jobs to get Nevadans back to work.”