OMB Earmark Database -- Now with Districts!
Thanks to the Club's database vendor, Dan Goodwin, we've been able to assign a House member and district to almost 73% of the earmarks identified in the OMB database. However, this is a very imprecise method that's fraught with obstacles. Only when a city was at least 90% contained within a district did the assignment take place. That means there could be some mis-matches. Plus, just because a project is located in a member's district doesn't mean that member sponsored it (i.e. it could have been requested by a Senator).
Therefore, it would be horribly inappropriate to take this new version and pass it off as final. There is still work to be done, but this should move the ball forward.
Download the Earmark CSV file.
