Several progressive nonprofits could soon receive millions of taxpayer dollars thanks to earmarks tucked away in the appropriations bills currently being reviewed by House and Senate leadership.
Among the entities funded through earmarks are legal organizations that seek to help illegal immigrants remain in the country, activist groups that have partnered with major liberal organizations to engage in policy advocacy, a group that posits that racism causes violence, and an organization that actively worked to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president in 2024.
As part of negotiations between the GOP-led chambers — which each previously passed their own spending bills and are now working to reconcile any differences — budget legislation was split into three parts. The bill detailing funding for Commerce, Justice, and Science contains hundreds of earmarks, a kind of special funding that individual members of Congress can request for projects in their constituencies, some of which are intended to provide funds for left-of-center organizations.
While Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) successfully led a push this week to strip from the bill a $1 million earmark requested by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for a nonprofit organization benefiting her state’s Somali community, others remain in the legislation as leaders in both chambers attempt to broker deals. Roy has publicly singled out other grants that he would like to see removed from the bill before it passes into law, and the Washington Examiner identified additional progressive groups that would receive funding if the earmarks remain in the budget bill.
Two chapters of the National Urban League, for instance, are set to receive roughly $1.5 million through the earmark process. The National Urban League is a primarily African American civil rights organization that generally advances left-of-center policy priorities. It strongly supports race-based affirmative action, the Affordable Care Act, and its leader — the former Democratic mayor of New Orleans — has called for the prosecution of President Donald Trump over his involvement in the Jan. 6 riots.
The organization’s Chicago chapter, which has roughly half a million dollars allocated for it in the current appropriations legislation, was politically active during the 2024 presidential elections. Among other operations, it held several get-out-the-vote events while arguing that Republicans were seeking to harm the African American community by implementing the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy agenda.
Additionally, the organization held a “Woke Summit” in September 2024.
“My office found at least 20 particularly egregious earmarks in the CJS appropriations package, including $1 million toward a ‘Somali-run’ community center program in Minnesota, requested by Rep. Ilhan Omar,” Roy told the Washington Examiner. “With the exposure of one of the biggest fraud scandals in history in Minnesota led by Gov. Walz and Attorney General Ellison, this is beyond unacceptable. Through efforts led by House conservatives, including myself, this funding was stripped from the final bill. While that was a fight worth winning, it leaves in place ridiculous earmarks as well as grants to sanctuary cities and other spending that are entirely unacceptable, and I will oppose the bill.”
Other grants to left-of-center organizations currently listed as earmarks include $500,000 to Mothers United Against Violence, a community safety group that partners with gun control organizations such as Moms Demand Action, the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, and Newtown Action Alliance, and $250,000 for the Center for Justice Innovation, a criminal justice nonprofit organization that “centers safety and racial justice.”
Roy has publicly taken issue with a $1 million grant to Eastie Farm for a Climate Corps fellowship over its focus on “climate justice,” a $260,000 grant to the Nonviolence Institute for assertions that racism is a cause of violence, roughly $2 million earmarked for Vermont Legal Aid over its work with illegal immigrants, $1 million to an academic institute that studies “inequities” in the criminal justice system, and just over $1 million set aside for the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice, which Roy also claims works on behalf of illegal immigrants.
The congressman has called these earmarks “the currency of corruption.”