Are Earmarks Returned for Bribes? You Decide!

"A Reading Program's Powerful Patron" by James V. Grimaldi, Washington Post: When Congress decided to appropriate $2 million in fall 2001 to help D.C. kindergartners and first-graders learn to read, city school officials were told that the money could be spent only on the Voyager Expanded Learning literacy program, a new product with virtually no track record. They had just picked a different reading curriculum, and "we didn't want to be guinea pigs," recalled Mary Gill, then the system's chief academic officer.

School leaders did not know that the $2 million was an earmark that had been guided into law by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) just after she had received more than $30,000 in campaign contributions at a fundraiser held by Voyager's founder and chairman.

Landrieu's earmark illustrates the unusual role that Congress has played in shaping the District's troubled school system. No other school budget is subject to approval by Capitol Hill. . . . Landrieu, as the ranking Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate's D.C. appropriations subcommittee until early this year, was a pivotal figure in school spending and policy issues. With the Voyager earmark, she intruded on a curriculum decision normally made by teachers, principals, administrators and educational advisers. "It is unclear to me why Congress thinks they're qualified to do that," said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools . . . .

Landrieu received about $80,000 from Voyager employees and lobbyists . . . . "It is not uncommon for Members of Congress to receive contributions from individuals who support their policy goals," she said in the statement to The Post, echoing a similar response she gave Education Week last year for a story on Voyager's political connections. Voyager employed lobbyists and made political contacts to obtain at least 14 earmarks over five years, worth more than $8 million . . . . Some went to other parts of the country, but most -- $5.23 million -- went to D.C. schools. . . . [Read More]

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