Nearly a quarter of the House Democratic freshman class has not signed on to co-sponsor the controversial card-check bill, despite being showered with campaign contributions by organized labor.

Many of these Democrats represent battleground districts, and their reluctance to support the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) reflects worries it would affect their reelection in 2010. Business groups staunchly opposed to the bill campaigned against supporters in 2008.

But by not supporting the bill, which would make it easier for workers to forum unions, the freshmen risk alienating labor groups that could help them remain in Congress.

“Their decision not to co-sponsor raises an issue that will have to be addressed to their constituents,” said Bill Samuel, legislative director for the AFL-CIO. “It’s really between them and their local union members, many of whom walked precincts for them.”

The seven freshmen who did not sign their names to the bill represent some of the most competitive districts in the country.

Reps. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.), Walt Minnick (D-Idaho) and Parker Griffith (D-Ala.) all won with less than 52 percent of the vote. Reps. Frank Kratovil (D-Md.) and Tom Perriello (D-Va.) each required a recount to claim their seats. Only Reps. Glenn Nye (D-Va.) and Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) won by comfortable margins.

The bill was started last year, so Rick Renzi’s requests are included.

The Arizona projects, and the requesting party, include:

• ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center, Tucson, $254,000 (Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.).

• Pima County Community College Entrepreneurial Education and Development, $147,386 (Giffords).

• Tucson Modern Streetcar/Light Rail Transit System, $2 million (Giffords, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.).

• Phoenix to Tucson Commuter Rail Study, $3.5 million (Giffords, Grijalva, Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz.).

• Arizona Forest Highway 39 and General Hitchcock Highway (Catalina Highway), Pima County, $1.6 million (Giffords).

• Tohono O’odham Nation infrastructure-roads improvement, Sells, $950,000 (Grijalva).

• Tohono O’odham Nation for facilities and equipment, Sells, $95,000 (Grijalva).

• Pascua Yaqui, $96,000 (Grijalva).

• Pima County (Tres Rios Del North), $249,000 (Giffords, White House).

• Esperanza en Escalante for building improvements, construction and expansion, Tucson, $166,250 (Giffords).

• University of Arizona for instruction and support to disabled veterans, Tucson, $238,000 (Grijalva).

• University of Arizona for the Integrative Medicine in Residency Program, Tucson, $476,000 (Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa).*

• Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona Domestic Violence Center, Tucson, $285,000 (Giffords).

• JobPath for a nurse training program, Tucson, $190,000 (Giffords, Grijalva).

• Tucson police finger imaging upgrade system, $200,000 (Giffords, Grijalva).

• Pima County Sheriff’s Office wireless integrated network, $200,000 (Giffords, Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz.).

• Tucson meth education program, $500,000 (Giffords, Grijalva).

• Tucson Drainage Area, $400,000 (Giffords, Grijalva, Pastor).

• Interstate 10 West Corridor Alternative Analysis, $475,000 (Pastor).

• Tubac COBRA Communications Initiative, $250,000 (Grijalva).

• Colorado River Basin, Central Arizona Project, $25.3 million (Grijalva).

• Southern Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act Project, $2.7 million (White House).

• Glendale Historic Entryway, $200,000 (Pastor).

• Upper San Pedro River Monitoring and Reporting, $295,000 (Giffords).

• Buckskin Sanitary District Wastewater Facilities Improvements, $500,000 (Grijalva).

• Surprise Water Treatment Improvements, $500,000 (Pastor, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.).

• Pascua Yaqui Tribe Master Drainage Plan, $700,000 (Pastor).

• International Arid Lands Consortium, $401,000 (Grijalva, Pastor).

• Chicanos Por La Causa for a business incubator, $245,643 (Pastor).

• Cochise County Community College Entrepreneurial Education and Development, $49,129 (Giffords).

• Navajo Nation Department of Information Technology for Connect Navajo, $122,821 (Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M).*

• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport for a high-speed taxiway connector, $950,000 (Pastor).

• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport for Taxiway R reconstruction, $1.9 million (Pastor).

• Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport for Taxiway B expansion, $950,000 (Mitchell).

• Central Mesa Corridor Alternatives Analysis, $237,500 (Mitchell).

• Tempe South Corridor Alternatives Analysis, $237,500 (Mitchell).

• South Mountain Circulator Bus, $950,000 (Pastor).

• Central Phoenix/East Valley Light Rail, $91.8 million (Pastor, Mitchell, White House).

• Mountain Links BRT, Flagstaff, $5.6 million (White House).

• Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, $4.2 million (Kyl).

• Sage Brush Road Project, Navajo Mountain Chapter, $139,650 (former Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz.).

• Interstate 10 Improvements Project, Interstate 8 to Picacho Peak, $95,000 (Renzi).

• Obed Bridge Replacement, Navajo County, $190,000 (Renzi).

• Pinetop-Lakeside Bridge Widening Project, $190,000 (Renzi).

• Chicanos Por La Causa for equipment furnishings and improvements for a community campus, Phoenix, $380,000 (Pastor).

• Willcox construction of a senior-care center, $95,000 (Giffords).

• The Salvation Army for community center expansion, Phoenix, $380,000 (Pastor).

• Mammoth expansion of a community center, $142,500 (Renzi).

• Jobs for Arizona’s Graduates for dropout prevention and after-school programs, Scottsdale (Grijalva).

• Maricopa County Community College District for the bilingual nursing program at Gateway South Mountain Community College, Tempe, $285,000 (Pastor).

• Mesa Community College for the online registered nurse certification program, $119,000 (Mitchell).

• Northern Arizona University for student support services and community outreach programs, Yuma, $128,000 (Grijalva).

• Chiricahua Community Health Centers Inc. for facilities and equipment, Douglas, $343,000 (Giffords).

• Northern Cochise Community Hospital Inc. for facilities and equipment, Willcox, $95,000 (Giffords).

• Phoenix Children’s Hospital for facilities and equipment, Phoenix, $143,000 (Pastor).

• St. Joseph’s Hospital for facilities and equipment, Phoenix, $119,000 (Pastor).

• Translational Genomics Research Institute for facilities and equipment, Phoenix, $285,000 (Pastor).

• Valley Interfaith Project for skills training and career upgrades, Phoenix, $476,000 (Mitchell).

• Mesa’s East Valley Rapid Crime Analysis, $275,000 (Mitchell).

• Phoenix Police Officer Communications Network, $500,000 (Pastor).

• Tempe public safety communications interoperability, $275,000 (Mitchell).

• Pinal County Sheriff’s Office meth enforcement program, $150,000 (Renzi).

• San Carlos Apache Tribal Police meth enforcement project, $350,000 (Renzi).

• Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Arizona meth project, $1 million (Mitchell, Pastor).

• Operation QT after-school program, Paradise Valley, $550,000 (Pastor).

• Agua Fria River Trilby Wash, $191,000 (Kyl).

• Little Colorado River Watershed, $229,000 (Renzi, Kyl).

• Rio Salado Oeste, Salt River, $1.4 million (Mitchell, Pastor).

• Va Shly’Ay Akimel Salt River restoration, $629,000 (Mitchell, Pastor, White House).

• Nogales Wash, $2.5 million (Grijalva, Pastor, Kyl).

• Rio de Fug, Flagstaff, $1.5 million (Pastor, Renzi, Kyl).

• Tres Rios, $9.6 million (Mitchell, Pastor, Kyl).

• Alamo Lake, $1.4 million (Army Corps of Engineers).

• Army Corps of Engineers inspection of completed works, $93,000

• Painted Rock Dam, $1.1 million (Army Corps of Engineers).

• Scheduling reservoir operations, $36,000 (Army Corps of Engineers).

• Whitlow Ranch Dam, $159,000 (Army Corps of Engineers).

• Ak-Chin Water Rights Settlement Act Project, $9.7 million (White House).

• Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act, $484,000 (Kyl).

• Colorado River front work and levee system, $2.2 million (Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif.; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; White House).*

• Northern Arizona investigations program, $293,000 (White House).

• Phoenix Metropolitan Water Reuse Project, $250,000 (Pastor, White House).

• Salt River Project, $558,000 (White House).

• San Carlos Apache Tribe Water Settlement Act, $298,000 (White House).

• South/Central Arizona Investigations Program (Bureau of Reclamation), $658,000 (White House).

• Casa Grande Water Recycling Project, $54,000 (Giffords, Pastor).

• Yuma-area Bureau of Reclamation projects, $21.3 million (White House).

• Yuma East Wetlands, $1.5 million (Grijalva, Pastor, Kyl).

• Water-to-water heat pump chillers, Phoenix Children’s, $1.9 million (Pastor).

• Ace program at Maricopa County community colleges, $951,500 (Pastor).

* No Arizona lawmakers joined in making the request.

Rep. Ed Pastor has an ear for earmarks and no qualms about directing federal cash to local projects that critics might characterize as pork.

The veteran Arizona Democrat’s accommodating attitude toward spending puts him at odds with Republican Capitol Hill colleagues such as Sen. John McCain and Rep. Jeff Flake.

But observers say it also helps make Pastor, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, the most influential member of the state’s House delegation, particularly in a changing political climate marked by President Barack Obama’s progressive policies and government activism.

“Whatever my constituents ask for, I try to meet their needs. When you’re an appropriator, obviously, you are able to do things, so I try to help as much as I can,” Pastor said in an interview with The Arizona Republic. “The situation is there is need all over the state.”

And:

“An earmark’s worth is in the eye of the beholder,” said Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., a member of the influential House Appropriations Committee whose name is attached to assorted omnibus earmarks worth more than $128.5 million.

“Ninety-eight percent of the budget and projects are determined by the president; 2 percent are determined by the entire Congress, both the Senate and the House. For all practical purposes, most of the earmarks are going to cities, towns, states or hospitals and educational institutions.”

Pastor pointed to the upgraded control tower at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport as a vital local project that started as an earmark. The recently opened Metro light rail began with an earmark to study its feasibility, he said.

Last week, more than 30 Members of Congress joined Rep. Raul Grijalva in asking President Obama to affirm U.S. neutrality in El Salvador’s Presidential election on Sunday March 15, to stop the recycling in El Salvador of US threats when Salvadorans voted in 2004. But there has been no high-level response from the Obama Administration, Rep. Grijalva told Democracy Now! yesterday.

But right-wing Republicans in Congress have not been quiet. Upside Down News reports:

On Tuesday El Salvador’s largest circulating daily, the Diario de Hoy, published news of a letter signed by over 40 Republicans in Congress, denouncing the FMLN and warning of their links to Venezuela and Cuba. The letter expresses “grave concern that a victory by the FMLN could make links between El Salvador and the regimes of Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, and other states that promote terrorism, and also with other non-democratic regimes and terrorist organizations.”

Meanwhile, CISPES reports:

Yesterday, two Republicans gave speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives threatening that Salvadorans living in the U.S. will lose their immigration status and be outlawed from sending money home to their families if voters in El Salvador exercise their right to elect the opposition FMLN party’s candidate on Sunday.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) said, “Should the pro-terrorist FMLN party replace the current government in El Salvador, the United States, in the interests of national security, would be required to reevaluate our policy toward El Salvador, including cash remittance and immigration policies to compensate for the fact there will no longer be a reliable counterpart in the Salvadoran government.”

Senate Republicans blocked a $410 billion omnibus spending measure on Thursday night, forcing Congressional Democrats to prepare a stopgap budget resolution to keep the federal government from shutting down.

The ability of the diminished minority to delay the bill signaled growing unease in Congress, among Democrats and Republicans, over the levels of government spending in recent months and the staggering increase in the federal deficit.

The delay of the bill was an embarrassment for Democrats and a striking, if temporary, victory for critics of so-called earmark spending initiatives, who had criticized the bill as bloated with wasteful expenditures.

Among those critics were Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and two Democrats who opposed the measure, Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

…
[From an earlier edition]
Representative Harry E. Mitchell, Democrat of Arizona, said he voted against the measure primarily because in included a sizable increase in financing for Congress itself. “We need to restrain,” Mr. Mitchell said in an interview. “You can’t just continually go on a binge like this.”