San Francisco Examiner - January 8, 2008
Harry Jaffe, hjaffe@washingtonian.com

On Capitol Hill every year, billions of dollars leak out of the federal budget by way of earmarks. Some have become notorious, such as Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' millions of dollars in earmarks for a bridge that went - nowhere.

Prepared to root out favoritism and skullduggery right here in D.C., I went prying into earmarks D.C. congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton gave out last year. I demanded to see the ledgers of the secret records! Alas, they were on Norton's Web site.

"We publish the list every year," Norton tells me.

What - no highway to her house?

Norton's lament is that she had only about $7 million to hand out in earmarks last year. In the past she had had as much as $20 million at her disposal. Her 2007 earmarks went to 22 nonprofit organizations in D.C. I combed the list looking for a stinker.

"Each one has a story," she says.

A likely story. What about Menzfit, which got a cool $23,500? I proceeded to investigate. Here's what I found: Menzfit is a six-year-old nonprofit that prepares men who are jobless or just back from prison to enter the work force. It teaches basic interview skills. It dresses them for success. Pretty much on the level.

Try as I might, I could not ferret out even one self-serving Norton earmark. Each of the 22 seemed to go to a worthy cause. ARISE Foundation, which teaches life skills to troubled teens, got $281,000. Sitar Center for the Arts, which offers music courses after school, received $22,500. Bright Beginnings got $100,000 to provide child care for homeless families.

"We're biased toward children, if at all," Norton says.

And HIV/AIDS, Norton's other favorite cause. She directed a few earmarks to train dentists who agree to treat people with HIV, which is often first detected by dentists.

"We go through an arduous process," she says. "Many more come in than can get funded." People have to prove to Norton and her staff that their needs can be met only through an earmark, that it's a one-time shot, that it has no connection to her or her staff.

It does help to have a congressman on your side. California Republican Jerry Lewis likes Barracks Row on Eighth Street SE and sent $500,000 its way. New York's Jose Serrano sent $131,000 through Norton to Eastern Market. Plenty of congressmen like former Redskin George Starke's auto mechanic training program, Excel Institute, which got $300,000.

I could be snarky and pick at the $1.8 million for Marriage Development Accounts, a pet project of ultra conservative Republican Sen. Sam Brownback.

But like the rest of Norton's earmarks, this one rings true to what D.C. needs. No pork here; just basic bacon.

Darn.

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