Some want to limit earmarks

In July, Congressman Doug Lamborn took a $250 campaign donation from Carol Sturman, co-owner of an engine controls research and development company in Woodland Park.

Later in the year, Sturman Industries received $800,000 in a defense appropriations bill for research on a technology that could improve engine-fuel efficiency. That earmark was requested by Lamborn, as well as by two Democratic members of the Colorado delegation, Rep. Mark Udall and Sen. Ken Salazar.

There is nothing illegal about a member of Congress helping to get federal money for a campaign donor. But some in Congress favor tightening the law on earmarks, the monetary awards for specific companies or projects that are inserted quietly into budget bills.

One of those is Jeff Crank, the 2006 Republican primary runner-up who is running against Lamborn, a fellow GOP member, again this year. If elected, Crank said, he would introduce a bill to ban members of Congress from taking money from people for whom they acquired earmark funding.

“Could it be an oversight that any member of Congress could take that money and get an earmark? Certainly,” said Crank, former administrative director for Lamborn’s predecessor, Rep. Joel Hefley. “But that’s why you shouldn’t even do it — because you don’t want the appearance that your vote’s being bought. And I don’t want to guess what Doug’s intentions are.”

Lamborn denied that the campaign donation had anything to do with his helping Sturman, saying the military is interested in the technology her company is developing.

“I don’t make that connection because there is no such connection in reality,” he said. “I’m not for sale, and for anyone to think that is just plain wrong.”

Lamborn said he is also concerned with keeping jobs in the 5th Congressional District, and that an earmark like this can help.

Earmarking is one of the issues that played heavily in Republicans losing control of Congress in 2006. Huge, often hidden spending on projects such as the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska made people doubt the party’s claims to open government and fiscal conservatism.

The House voted last year to require members to release information on their earmarks, though that measure failed in the Senate. Democratic leaders have vowed to bring a similar bill back in 2008, and Lamborn said he agrees with that.

Lamborn secured six earmarks, totaling $9.41 million, in this year’s budget. They ranged from a $3.2 million award for the postgraduate school in homeland defense at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs to a $149,000 grant for an ongoing study of Fountain Creek.

Lamborn said he would consider supporting Crank’s proposal barring earmarks for campaign donors, but only if there were a provision limiting the time that passes between a donation and an earmark. He would not, for example, want someone to have to deny an earmark for a company six years after getting a donation from it, he said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: (303) 837-0613 or ed.sealover@gazette.com