Reining in Congressional Earmarks

KWTP & TTPCAC Press Release Draft in support of Rep. John Culberson’s Resolution Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to further strengthen the rule regarding congressional earmarks.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Advisory Committee to the Texas Tea Party Caucus of the TX Legislature Supports Culberson House Resolution Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to further strengthen the rule regarding congressional earmarks

KINGWOOD, Texas (December 27, 2012) – The Advisory Committee to the Texas Tea Party Caucus of the Texas Legislature and the Kingwood TEA Party highly recommend that you and all our fellow American conservative activists and groups join us in support of Rep. John Culberson’s House Resolution Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to further strengthen the rule regarding congressional earmarks. Rep. Culberson is well-known for helping to pass laws that ended a judge’s ability to control Texas Prisons by fiat from his judicial bench.

“This will untie our U.S. Reps hands, tied by the wording of the Earmark Ban, so that they can legally oversee the expenses and spending of all agencies, elected or appointed, of the United States,” explained Robin Lennon, President and Co-founder of the Kingwood TEA Party and Founding Member of the Advisory Committee to the Texas Tea Party Caucus of the Texas Legislature. She added, “For nearly four years I have opined and complained about the House’s abdication of its responsibility to control all spending by allowing Federal agencies to spend taxpayer money which, according to the U.S. Constitution, should be legislated by our elected representatives rather than regulated by unelected bureaucrats. Now is the time to offer our full support to Rep. Culberson to begin effecting this vital restoration.”

Culberson’s House Resolution (Culberson House Resolution Draft_127; Culberson House Resolution Draft_001 ) will begin the process of returning the abdicated responsibility for appropriating all funds spent by the Federal government back to the U.S. House of Representatives.

The goals of both the TTPCAC and the Kingwood TEA Party are to make Texas as fiscally strong, free, and business friendly as possible in the coming years. We believe that the government instituted by the U.S. Constitution offers all American citizens the most freedom and opportunity to pursue their personal goals and happiness. Supporting John Culberson’s House Amendment is the beginning of restoring American Liberty as it was envisioned by our Founding Fathers.

Contact:
Robin Lennon, Kingwood TEA Party President
robin@kingwoodteaparty.com
(281) 389-8674

# # #

Founding Members of the Advisory Committee to the Texas Tea Party Caucus of the Texas Legislature (TTPCAC) include Tea Party leaders from prominent tea parties from all over the State such as JoAnn Fleming (jafleming3@juno.com ), TTPCAC Chair & Executive Director of Grassroots America-We the People; Robin Lennon, President & Co-founder of the Kingwood TEA Party; Katrina Pierson of Garland Tea Party & Watch the Vote.org; Julie Turner, President of Texas Patriots PAC, Konni Burton of NE Tarrant Tea Party; Felicia Cravens, Co-founder of Houston Tea Party Society & Blogger of Something Fishie; Robert Gonzalez, Co-founder of Clear Lake Tea Party; Sharon Hall, Secretary of the San Antonio Tea Party; Chuck Molyneaux, of Allen Area Patriots.

Links: http://kingwoodteaparty.com/?attachment_id=13420
http://kingwoodteaparty.com/?attachment_id=13421
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/elert/give_thanks_texans_running_texas_prisons_again

Culberson House Amendment_127

Culberson House Amendment_001

Dear Robin:

The most effective control that Congress can exercise over a president is through the appropriations  process.  Everything the government does costs money and that funding must be approved by the peoples’ elected representatives under our Constitution to ensure maximum accountability to the taxpayers who work so hard to earn those dollars.

Now that the election is behind us, it is evident that the House of Representatives has a special responsibility to ensure that existing law is enforced and that our precious tax dollars are spent in exactly the way the law requires.  Therefore, I have drafted the enclosed amendment to ensure that the House of Representatives has full control over all aspects of spending including designated spending to a federal, state or local unit of government in a geographically specific location, which is currently prohibited by the temporary earmark ban.  Earmarks were temporarily abolished because they were too often abused by being dropped anonymously into legislation at the last minute in conference committees, often for purposes not authorized by law, and they often spent money above and beyond what the Congress had approved.

I believe these problems are solved by the enclosed amendment.  As you can see, under this amendment, Congress has full control over all authorized spending for any branch of the federal government and for federal dollars sent to state and local government as long as: (1) it does not increase overall spending, (2) it went through the open committee process, (3) the congressman’s name is attached to it, and (4) the congressman has no personal conflict of interest.

This process will ensure absolute transparency and total accountability to the taxpayers for all spending decisions.  Most importantly, the House of Representatives will have total control over President Barack Obama because we will be able to control the money he spends without any gaps or blind spots as we have today with the earmark ban.  I hope that you can circulate this to your members with my personal assurance that I am totally committed to cutting spending and cutting taxes and to use the appropriations process to ensure that President Obama obeys the law and to restrain him from doing further damage to our nation’s economy.  Your support for this amendment will be vital to its success.  I deeply appreciate your commitment to the principles that have made America the most prosperous and powerful nation in history.

Sincerely,

John Culberson

Give Thanks: Texans Running Texas Prisons Again
Fair Courts E-lert

Date of E-Lert – 06/27/02

Bibliographic Info:
Author: John Culberson
Source: Houston Chronicle
Date: 6/25/2002

U.S. Representative John Culberson (R., Texas) cheers U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice’s dismissal of the Ruiz case, a prison reform lawsuit that “had kept control of Texas prisons in one federal judge’s hands since the early 1970s.” The case, Culberson asserts, had rendered elected officials “powerless to stop this flood of early releases because of the omnipotence” of Judge Justice, who “fought tenaciously and defeated every attempt to limit, much less end, his total control over the Texas prison system.” However, the Texas Legislature and the U.S. Congress passed laws that “boxed in Judge Justice” and left him “no choice but to surrender” to the Tenth Amendment’s “promise to let Texans run Texas.”

What this alert I found on the Internet fails to say is that John Culberson was the one who conceived of this legislative attack to bring control of Texas prisons back to Texas. He conceived of the idea to pass the legislation that rendered the encroaching judge subject to the Rule of Law, effectively stopping from legislating requirements for Texas prisons from his judicial bench.

Rep. John Culberson is currently working to wrench even more of the unconstitutional Federal encroachments on State jurisdictions away from the Feds and bring power back to the citizens and State of Texas by reinstating the constitutional duty and power of the U.S. House to appropriate all funds spent by the Federal government.

SOURCE: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/elert/give_thanks_texans_running_texas_prisons_again