A Perfect Metaphor for Tim Holden's Legislative Career
by Holden Watch
We have written before of our reluctance to start a bidding war among candidates for Congress over who can best bring home the bacon. We think congressional earmarks to be a corrupt practice, a lazy way to campaign, and irrelevant to nearly every district resident. They are merely a means for members of Congress to attract favorable publicity to support their campaigns. But we have also shared our belief that, if one approves of earmarks and considers them to be a legitimate or even an important function of a public official as Tim Holden has repeatedly claimed, then it is fair to judge members of Congress on how well they do it.
Holden advances no rationale for his reelection other than his claimed ability to bring federal dollars to the district. He boasts about his seniority on the House Agriculture Committee and his chairmanship of some subcommittee or other, and tells us that his position there is important to his constituents.
In order to gauge what Holden's seniority in the House and on the Ag committee along with his responsibilities there mean to the district, we just spent a half hour in the database for approved FY2010 earmarks. For the first time Holden's list of FY2010 earmark requests was required to be posted in advance on his web site, so we can compare them to his results.
We won't burden you with the details, but can tell you that, as usual, Holden didn't score all of his requests, and of those he did get, only one was solely sponsored by Timmy. The rest were shared with at least two and sometimes as many as four other House members, including Republicans. His one solo earmark will be spent around the Commonwealth on salaries and expenses by the PA Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The rest of the money will go to Centre County.
Here's the overview:
The bill contains 322 House earmarks worth $219.8 million. Holden's name appeared on six.
Holden's solo total, the only earmark for which he can take personal responsibility: $209,000, or less than 1/10 of 1% of the total.
Earmarks with others: $1,729,000, all of which will be spent in State College at Penn State University.
Shared earmarks, pro rata Holden: $409,300
Grand Total for Tim Holden, solo and shared: $618,300, or 0.28% of the total, of which more than two-thirds will be spent outside the district in Centre County and elsewhere.
Tim Holden, a representative from a rural district who advertises himself as a powerful Ag Committee member and chairman of an important subcommittee, gets less than 1% of the House earmarks in the Ag Dept. appropriations bill. Two-thirds of what he does get is shared with other members and spent outside his district.
One would think that if Holden were going to be effective anywhere in Congress, it would be in an area where he can claim a little clout. As it turns out, he can't claim it because he clearly has none.
Why on earth does anyone in the district think Holden is serving them? As you can see, he fails when using his own standard, even in the committee he constantly holds up as his greatest legislative credential.