Credit: (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)WASHINGTON — Over the past three federal budget cycles, through a funding process called earmarking, one New Jersey congressman has brought significantly more money back to his district than any of his state colleagues did to theirs.
That member, Republican Jeff Van Drew, who represents about 780,000 people in the state’s 2nd Congressional District, secured $92.3 million for the district since Congress brought back earmarks in 2021 after they were banned in 2010.
That sum placed him ahead of the 13 other people who have represented New Jersey in the House since 2021, and near the totals for Sen. Cory Booker and former Sen. Bob Menendez.
Van Drew, however, voted against all the bills that contained his earmarks. Yet he has touted his work to get his earmarks passed into law, including in January, when his office announced about $10 million in funding for seven projects in his district.
“The bottom line is that I assured that my district and the state of New Jersey would be taken care of,” Van Drew said in a recent interview with NJ Spotlight News. “We received a record amount of funding for the district, and that was based on the hard work I did and my staff did.”
Earmarks: Legitimate funding or ‘gateway drugs’
After lawmakers reinstated the use of earmarks three years ago, New Jersey’s delegation to Congress has brought back roughly $838 million to the state, money spread across its 12 House seats and sprinkled through 655 total projects.
NJ Spotlight News compiled and reviewed all the state’s earmarks since they returned, covering three years and using data from the two congressional appropriations committees and the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog agency that tracks congressional spending.
Though some prominent Senate Republicans oppose earmarks as forms of wasteful government spending — Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz calls them “gateway drugs” to federal debt — members of both parties in the House and Senate have embraced them in recent years.
Van Drew has his name on three of the state’s most expensive earmarks: $32 million for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project in Ocean County; a $10 million federal sea wall in Cape May County; and a $6.9 million drone project at Woodbine Municipal Airport in Cape May County.
Booker and Menendez also requested earmarks for the Corps project and the sea wall, and Booker signed on to the drone earmark with Van Drew.
Members often submit larger earmark requests as a pair or group.
All three of New Jersey’s Republicans, Van Drew and Reps. Chris Smith (R-4th) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th), support and submit earmarks.
NJ’s total
Second to Van Drew’s earmark haul is Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th), who obtained about $83.6 million. Then there is a sharp drop in the totals other House members obtained.
The late Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-9th) secured roughly $46.5 million in earmarks, followed by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th) with about $42.8 million, Mikie Sherrill with approximately $42.1 million and the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-10th), who won $40.1 million worth of earmarks.
Van Drew voted against all four pieces of legislation that contained his earmarks for the last three budget cycles — fiscal years 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Over the past three years, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th) got $39.2 million in earmarks, Smith secured $38.2 million, Rep. Andy Kim (D-3rd) snagged $36.3 million and Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st) shepherded home about $28.5 million.
Freshman members Kean and Rep. Rob Menendez (D-8th) obtained about $25 million and $19.9 million respectively in earmarks for the latest budget year.
Tasked with representing a whole state, senators generally get more in earmarks than House members. That’s true of Booker ($96.2 million) and former Sen. Bob Menendez ($92.3 million).
How earmarks work
To obtain an earmark for a project they support, members, at the start of a new budget cycle, file their requests to the House or Senate appropriations committees, which then write and vote on the bills to fund the federal government.
In January, Van Drew trumpeted $10.3 million worth of recent earmarks he filed, including $3.75 million for the Salem County Courthouse, $2.2 million for safety upgrades to Route 72 in Stafford Township in Ocean County and $800,000 for “citywide” cameras for the Atlantic City Police Department.
“”I am thrilled to announce that my efforts to secure substantial funding for South Jersey public safety grants has culminated in $10.3 million for our district and the mechanisms for the recipients to utilize these grants are already in place,” Van Drew said in a statement Jan. 11. “This marks a significant step towards vital improvements for the communities we serve.”
The money would help keep the public safe and create jobs, he said.
New rules require greater disclosure of who or what organization is in line to receive a given earmark, and for-profit groups, such as a corporation, are not eligible.
Van Drew voted against all four pieces of legislation that contained his earmarks for the last three budget cycles — fiscal years 2022, 2023 and 2024.
“In any budget, especially the way that we do them, they’re either in the form of an omnibus or a minibus, there are lots of things in there,” Van Drew said in the recent interview with NJ Spotlight News, using terms to describe spending bills that are bundled together.
“Some of them are good, and some of them are not good, so you either have a choice for voting for all of it, including things that you totally philosophically [disagree] with and may do harm to your district, or you have the choice of voting to get things that are good but that you know that are going to happen anyhow,” Van Drew said.
Asked if he could identify any bills he voted for that contained his earmarks, he was unsure. “I’d have to look at my record on some of those.”
A spokeswoman for Van Drew, Paxton Antonucci, did not respond to questions about the congressman’s voting record about bills with earmarks.
The earmark taboo
Earmarks were banned in 2010, after a series of corruption scandals, including the prominent case of former Rep. Randy Cunningham, a California Republican, who pleaded guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors in exchange for earmarks.
New rules require greater disclosure of who or what organization is in line to receive a given earmark, and for-profit groups, such as a corporation, are not eligible.
To some lawmakers and congressional staffers, the term “earmark” is taboo due to its tarnished reputation. Instead, the House calls these pockets of money “community project funding” and the Senate calls them “congressionally directed spending.”
— Tables by Genesis Obando and Colleen O’Dea
