One of the most important priorities for our representatives in the House and Senate is fairly straightforward. They are elected to deliver federal dollars to their districts and states through infrastructure projects, grants, and funding for local initiatives.
The second priority is speedy and thorough constituent services, better known as casework. This essential service helps people navigate federal agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Security, and the IRS, all of which are often difficult to manage because of their maze of bureaucracy.
Do a good job at both, and your constituents will reward you. No one forgets the bridge you helped repair in your neighborhood, or the water lines you had replaced, or the military benefits you were able to secure that were lost in the system.
Fifteen years ago, earmarking was common in both chambers. But excessive pet projects and a stubborn refusal to embrace transparency gave earmarks a reputation for corruption and, in many cases, tainted the broader process of appropriating federal dollars.
No earmark was more notorious than the “Bridge to Nowhere,” a nearly $400 million earmark championed by then-Rep. Don Young (R-AK and then-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). It became a tawdry example of wasteful spending, which led to a revolt against earmarks.
By the time the Tea Party movement emerged in 2009, government reform had become a rallying cry. That push ultimately led former Republican Ohio Rep. John Boehner, who first won election to Congress in 1990 on a pledge never to take earmarks and to ban them after becoming Speaker of the House in 2011.
By 2022, earmarks had slowly moved back into the mainstream. And the two Pennsylvania politicians known for bringing home the bacon, Former Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Jack Murtha and former Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, were both deceased.
In 2022, then-Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), who represented Pittsburgh, brought home over $46 million in total in earmarks, a respectable and not excessive amount for his city-centric district.
In his final year in the House in 2022, Doyle secured funding for projects such as $7 million to rebuild Pittsburgh’s iconic and heavily used city steps, which often link hillside neighborhoods to downtown business districts and public transit. He also won $6 million for the public transit station at Station Square and $5 million each for Carrie Furnace and Duquesne University.
What is interesting about that amount is how much his successor, Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA), has brought in since Doyle left. Just this week, she announced $14 million for 15 projects.
That is $32 million less than Doyle brought home four years ago.
When Lee announced the amount last Monday, she released a statement: “For far too long, communities across Western Pennsylvania, especially historically overlooked working-class communities, have been told to make do with crumbling infrastructure, abandoned properties and a lack of investment in the spaces that bring people together.”
You might think the sharp drop in federal money for the city is because she is a Democrat and the House is still narrowly controlled by Republicans. But that explanation falls apart when you look at Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA), whose district surrounds the city and includes all of Beaver County, and who secured a whopping $193 million for 14 projects.
By comparison, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) brought in $214 million for 14 projects, and Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) brought in $27.1 million for 14 projects for their more rural, suburban districts.
Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) also brought in healthy amounts to the state. Fetterman secured $289.1 million, and McCormick brought in $275.8 million.
It is unclear why Lee has brought home less than one-third of what Doyle did just a few years ago, but it is consistent with her performance in 2024, when she announced that she had secured just over $12 million in earmarks for 15 projects in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District.
The only time she seemed to bring home the bacon, and I stress seemed, was in 2024 when she was seeking reelection, and she sent out to her constituents an email with a “Delivering results” banner with a list of projects that she brought home to the district.
Politically, it was shrewd. However, look between the lines, and this is money that came from the combined efforts of state and federal agencies and then-Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Fetterman at the time. Did she write a letter of support? Maybe. It is unclear to tell.
However, it made a great statement to release to her constituents. She even ran an ad on it. Did she win her seat because of it? No. Lee would have won both her Democratic primary and her general election race in 2024 without the ad. The district is packed to favor her.
But did she really deliver nearly $1 billion in federal projects to the district in just nine months in office, as she claimed as early as October 2023? Her record of bringing home funding since taking office strongly suggests she did not.
The question isn’t why Lee projected bringing a cool $1 billion for her district. The question is, why hasn’t Lee brought home more?
A former congressional staffer and Democrat suggested that Lee’s problem may stem in part from the committees she serves on, namely the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. But he also emphasized that it could reflect how well she has built relationships within the chamber. As a member of “the Squad,” an insurgent faction within the Democratic Party, Lee is often at odds not only with Republicans but sometimes even more with members of her own party.
And then there is the awkward reality of fiercely opposing the spending bill only to later tout how much money you secured from it.
And that is likely where the answer lies. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also secured only $14 million in federal funding for 15 community projects serving New York’s 14th Congressional District.
Like Lee, Ocasio-Cortez has to strike a difficult balance between celebrating the money she brings home and opposing the broader spending bill that delivers it to her constituents.
When announcing the funding, Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged that tension directly, saying, “Included in that bundling, even though I voted no, we were able to secure $14 million for different community funding projects here in New York’s 14th Congressional District.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), another member of the Squad, secured about the same amount, announcing that she had won $15 million in Community Project Funding for Michigan’s 12th Congressional District.
OUR CIVILIAN-MILITARY BOND IS CRACKED
Every choice at the ballot box has consequences. Voters must decide whether they want a firebrand who may excite them politically but fails to bring home the federal dollars needed to address community needs, or a representative who can work across the aisle and deliver for the district.
For the foreseeable future, those who are in the 12th Congressional District are stuck with the former.