Rossi forgoes earmarks

Dino Rossi, candidate to replace Senator Patty, announced that he will not seek earmarks when he is serving in the Senate. Senator Patty is a hero of earmarks - 8th in the Senate. OpenSecrets Her representative, Alex Glass, emphasized that she feels it her duty to add spending items after a bill has been debated. That's what an earmark is: you avoid the light of the hearing process and sneak funding for a boat the military doesn't want at the end of the process when there is no time to consider the merits. Her representative says she supports adding some light with a searchable database of earmarks. She has been in the Senate for 18 years. Funny she didn't think of adding light until this week. She's has been hiding from it all that time. And the database, I am sure, will be for seeing the damage after its done, not during the process. She is not a cosponsor of S.3335. Jim Brunner at Seattle Times Politics NW Blog