House Republicans are moving to strip Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omars $1 million earmark for a Somali-led nonprofit from a key spending package, amid concerns the controversial carveout could imperil a broader effort to avert a partial government shutdown.
The move targets funding for Generation Hopes Justice Empowerment Initiative, a program in Omars Minneapolis-area district that was quietly inserted into the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) portion of a larger minibus appropriations bill, which also covers the Commerce, Energy, Interior, and Justice departments, among other agencies, according to Western Journal.
With a January 30 funding deadline looming, Republican appropriators concluded that the political baggage attached to Omars project was too great a risk for a package worth tens of billions of dollars. GOP Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, made clear he would not allow a single members pet project to jeopardize the entire deal, telling reporters, I cant afford to have a million dollar project jeopardize a $184 billion package of bills.
Cole noted that this is not the first time leadership has had to lean on members to pull back controversial earmarks when they threaten broader conservative priorities. If we have an individual project that can pose a political problem, Ive had these in the past from our side before, where we had to tell a member, Look, there might be a way to do this, but our advice to you is to withdraw this.
The Omar earmark, which initially sought $1,460,877, is advertised on the congresswomans website as funding job-specific training, computer skills development, peer support services, and access to education, along with addiction recovery and mental health services.
The project is also backed by Minnesotas two Democratic senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, underscoring how firmly the states Democratic delegation has lined up behind the Somali-focused nonprofit. Yet that support has done little to calm Republican concerns that federal taxpayers are being asked to underwrite a narrowly tailored, identity-based initiative at a time of mounting debt and widespread skepticism about Washingtons spending habits.
Omar did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundations request for comment, leaving unanswered questions about why this particular group and program merited a seven-figure federal earmark.
Skepticism has been especially pronounced among conservatives who sit on the House Rules Committee, which controls what reaches the floor and under what terms. Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, a member of that panel, raised objections to the minibus in two separate Rules Committee meetings this week, signaling he would only support the bill on the House floor if he saw a written commitment to remove what he bluntly labeled the Somali million dollars.
His stance reflects a broader unease among rank-and-file conservatives about the return of earmarks and the perception that they function as political currency rather than genuine community investments.
Democrats, for their part, have tried to downplay the controversy while defending the broader practice of earmarking. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee and an early champion of the minibus, stressed that no single earmark should be allowed to sink an entire funding bill. It is under discussion and it will be resolved. Thats the way things go with these community projects. If theres a difficulty, if theres a problem, we try to work it out. Or it comes out, DeLauro told Politico on Wednesday.
The Omar earmark fight is unfolding against the backdrop of Democrats 2021 decision to rebrand earmarks as community project funding, after Republicans had banned the practice for more than a decade. That rebranding has done little to placate conservative critics, who argue that the new label masks the same old Washington habit of steering federal dollars to hyperlocal projects that often serve political interests more than public necessity.
Hardline Republicans have pushed to cap or eliminate such spending, warning that it fuels a culture of backroom deal-making and undermines efforts to rein in the federal budget.
Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, a member of both the Rules Committee and the House Freedom Caucus, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the earmarks embedded in the CJS bill. He has highlighted what he calls currency of corruption provisions, including $1 million for a Climate Corps Fellowship in the district of Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, nearly $2 million for Vermont Legal Aids Justice Mobile program requested by Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, and almost $2 million for detention center door replacement in the district of Republican Rep. Addison McDowell of North Carolina.
Roy has blasted these and other earmarks in the package as nonsense that no one he represents wants to see their money going towards.
For Roy and like-minded conservatives, the problem is not just the dollar amounts but the principle of using taxpayer funds to curry favor with specific constituencies. Its ridiculous to buy votes in the currency of corruption in this town, Roy told reporters Wednesday, encapsulating a long-standing conservative critique of earmark politics. His comments underscore a growing divide within Congress between those who see earmarks as a tool for coalition-building and those who view them as a gateway to waste and abuse.
To secure enough Republican votes while containing the political fallout, House leaders have agreed to a procedural workaround that would allow members to register their opposition to the most contentious portions of the package. Under the emerging deal, the three titles in the minibus Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, and Commerce-Justice-Science will be voted on separately, giving dissenting Republicans the option to oppose the CJS measure while still backing the other two. After those votes, the three bills would be recombined into a single package before being sent to the Senate, a maneuver designed to keep the overall funding process on track without forcing conservatives to swallow provisions they find objectionable.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, is pressing Congress to move quickly, signaling its support for the spending framework despite the internal Republican wrangling. The White House on Wednesday urged lawmakers to pass the appropriations package, praising the reduced spending levels contained in the minibus. If this bill were presented to the President in its current form, his senior advisors would recommend that he sign it into law, the administration said, making clear it is prepared to accept the compromise as written.
At the center of the dispute is Generation Hope, which describes itself on its website as a Somali-led organization that works closely with culturally specific treatment centers to connect East African individuals with culturally responsive treatment options. Founded in 2019 by Abdirahman Warsame and Khadar Abi, the group has quickly become a favored partner of Minnesotas Democratic delegation, even as its narrow ethnic focus raises questions among conservatives about whether federal dollars should be funneled to such targeted initiatives.
As lawmakers race to meet the funding deadline, the fate of Omars earmark has become a test case for whether Congress is serious about curbing parochial spending, or whether the old habits of Washingtons earmark era are quietly returning under a new name.
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