Rep. Young, R-AK rewrites bill after passing both houses:

[rodeodance]

County to Young: You Can Take Your Shady Earmark and Shove It
By Laura McGann - August 17, 2007, 11:26 AM

A county body in Florida voted today to send back Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) $10 million earmark. Young rewrote the language in the bill while it was on its way to the President's desk -- after passing both Houses of Congress.

Originally, the $10 million was allocated for an I-75 expansion project in Lee and Collier Counties. But after Young's fast one, the money could only be used for an interchange to Coconut Road. That project is unpopular in the area, but a boon to real estate developer Daniel Aronoff, who held a fundraiser that brought in $40,000 for Young right before the earmark appeared.

This morning, the Lee County Metropolitan Planning Organization voted 10-3 to return the money and ask that it be reallocated for the broader project. It's not clear if that will work. Some experts told me the signed legislation carries the force of law. But, this situation is unprecedented. We'll keep following the saga as it unfolds.

The Naples Daily News first broke that Young was behind the Coconut Road earmark and then how he changed the language. They are blogging the MPO meeting live, here.
Permalink | Comments (19) | TOPICS: Don Young


http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/

[rodeodance]

1. Experts Question Legality, Ethics Of Young's Earmark

Experts Question Legality, Ethics Of Young's Earmark
By Laura McGann - August 10, 2007, 5:06 PM

There are earmarks, and then there are earmarks.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK) has taken the political art form to an ethically questionable level that even some experts in the trenches have never seen. In 2005, Young waited until after the House and Senate passed a transportation bill, but before the president signed it into law, to rewrite a passage that would have granted $10 million for an interstate in Florida. His new wording targeted the money to a much smaller, more specific project to connect Coconut Road to that interstate. It's an unpopular project in the area, but a boon for real estate developer Daniel Aronoff, who held a $40,000 fundraiser for Young in Florida just before the earmark appeared.

Young has refused multiple requests for comment from different publications on these, and related allegations. Once he made an obscene gesture at a New York Times reporter who approached him about the earmark. His spokeswoman did not get back to us today........


http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003904.php

I asked a few experts today for historical and ethical perspective on Young's move.

Former staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, Scott Lilly, said this is a very atypical procedure. Once the bill has been voted on by the House and Senate, only some very technical changes can be made by the clerk. Then it goes to the President

[rodeodance]

2. So what can be done now that the change carries the force of law?

So what can be done now that the change carries the force of law?

The executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said she thinks there's virtually no chance of the famously inactive House ethics committee pursuing the issue.

"I think that this is a highly unlikely thing for the ethics committee do anything about," Melanie Sloan said.

Sill, theoretically, another member of Congress could file a complaint against Young. Craig Holman, the campaign finance lobbyist for Public Citizen, said this issue could be taken up by the courts, by either a private citizen or another member of Congress.

"If anyone can just change the language of a bill carrying it to the President, then why even have a Congress?" Holman said.

[aquart]

4. "Why even have a Congress?" George's position exactly.

[aquart]

3. Young should go to jail just for that little stunt.

Ten years seem appropriate to everyone?

[Blue_In_AK]

5. And as reported in Alaska...

http://www.adn.com/news/politics/fbi/young/story/9231529p-9146136c.html

Local officials in Florida decided Friday to send back the surprise $10 million Coconut Road earmark that Alaska U.S. Rep. Don Young slipped into the 2005 highway bill when he was chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

Young had directed that the money be spent to study an interchange on Interstate 75 near Fort Myers, Fla., abutting land owned by a major Young campaign contributor, real estate developer Daniel Aronoff.

The money wasn't sought by local officials. Republican Rep. Connie Mack, the congressman from the district, said he was unaware of the earmark when it surfaced last year.

<snip>

"There's nothing nefarious here. If they want to return the money back to DOT, they can do that," Anderson said.

But that's a different position than Young himself took in 2006 -- before he came under scrutiny for his earmarks and before the FBI began investigating his relationship with the Alaska oil-field service company Veco. Veco is at the center of the broad political corruption investigation in Alaska. In January 2006, Young warned county officials that they had to use the money as he directed, according to an account in the News-Press of Fort Myers. He wrote that the $10 million in federal money could not be used for any other road projects, as Lee County's transportation leaders wanted. Mack wrote a similar letter, telling the officials that if they rejected the money, future funding for other projects in their region could be jeopardized.

<snip>

In the two weeks before and after the earmark was inserted in the spending bill, Young's campaign and political action committee collected contributions from Aronoff, Aronoff's lobbyist, as well as a number of other Florida business executives, many of whom attended a fundraiser in Bonita Springs. The Florida donations, mainly from real estate interests, totaled more than $40,000.

<snip>

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. the f*ckin AUDACITY!

:mad:

[The Wielding Truth]

7. If the contract is changed after the congress has Oked it, I

would think that that would change the agreement and the entire thing would have be void until it revisited the congress for approval.