83 House Republicans voted against a bundle of bills worth about $460 billion on Wednesday, which funded substantial portions of the federal government.
Despite having asked for and received millions of dollars in federal assistance for a range of initiatives in their districts, 40 of them nevertheless took this action.
For instance, consider Rep. Lauren Boebert. On Wednesday, the Republican from Colorado declared that she will not support for the “Swamp Omnibus,” calling the legislation a “monstrosity” that “funds the Green New Deal.”
This is true even though she herself had asked for over $20 million in funding to be used for projects throughout the 3rd congressional district of the state, something she just gave up on in order to run for reelection in a safer seat on the opposite side of the state.
Together with Democratic Sens. Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper, she demanded $5 million to create a storage facility for water in Wolf Creek, $2.2 million for the water system in Craig, and millions more for transportation improvements throughout the district.
The request for comment was not answered by Boebert’s office.
Additionally, Representative Tim Burchett, a Republican, was able to obtain almost $12 million in earmark funds for his district in East Tennessee.
“I can stand by everything that we asked for,” Burchett said to Business Insider following the vote. “A few of the things in there, I am not sure you can defend. It’s simply excessive.”
This involved over $2.3 million for the University of Tennessee Medical Center’s medical screening program, $2 million for a Knoxville low-cost housing project, and over $2 million for Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, a small town bordering Kentucky, to build a Healthcare Supply Chain Data Engineering Center.
Nevertheless, Burchett voted with other Republicans to oppose the package, which contained all of his earmarks. In support of his preference to vote on each of the six appropriations measures separately, he emphasized the bill’s cost as well as its nature that it was a package.
“There are stuff that are there which I won’t support,” Burchett stated. “And I just fulfilled a promise to the people back home.”