Brian Bilbray Goes Back on His Word
Elected last week in the special election to replace felon Duke Cunningham in California's 50th District, Brian Bilbray has cast several votes that seem to contradict what he said while trying to get elected. From the San Diego Union Tribune: bq. "Bilbray said problems arise when earmarking is done in secret, so he proposed a ban on earmarks done behind closed doors." And here are some comments he made at a debate: bq. "I think the first priority is transparency and we passed a lot of laws when I first went to congress in 1995. There is still more to do, not allowing members of congress to put in private so-called earmarks for funding." Despite these strong words to clean up the earmark process, Bilbray promptly voted YES on the T-THUD appropriations bill yesterday, which contained over 1500 earmarks ($), most of which weren't even in the final bill, but secretly hidden in committee reports. Plus, he voted NO and NO and NO and NO on each of Jeff Flake's anti-pork amendments. Bilbray claims to be a fiscal conservative, but so far he's off to a bad start.
