WASHINGTON — When the House passed a massive spending bill last November, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi made sure her constituents knew what they were getting.
"Pelosi Secures $115 Million for San Francisco Transportation, Housing, Science and Arts," she proclaimed in a news release.
It wasn't an unusual announcement. Like many of her colleagues in Congress, Pelosi for years has celebrated bringing home the bacon to her district.
But now -- as Pelosi prepares to take over the House after an election in which scandal helped drive Republicans from power -- she is promising changes to the controversial practice of earmarking.
Earmarks are spending provisions dropped into bills -- often anonymously, at the last minute and without public scrutiny. They were at the center of several high-profile scandals that undermined the GOP this year, when earmarks benefited special interests.
Pelosi has not been linked to any impropriety. And not all the federal funding Pelosi boasts about came from earmarks. But the presumed new House speaker has proved a champion practitioner of the earmarking process over the years.
During the last congressional session, her district received far more earmarks than a typical district, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog that tracks congressional spending.
Pelosi has helped direct tens of millions of dollars to subway and bridge projects in San Francisco. She has secured money to restore a historic schooner and convert the old San Francisco Mint into a history museum.
Citizens Against Government Waste, a critic of such "pork-barrel" spending, has calculated that Pelosi's district received nearly $31.3 million through earmarks in the last two fiscal years.
Among the biggest earmarks identified by the group were $5.6 million for the UC San Francisco neurology department and $4 million for Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Both were inserted into the 2006 defense spending bill.
Three years ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Pelosi had secured $1 million for the University of San Francisco's Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, which was started by her longtime advisor and campaign treasurer.
At the time, the 10-term congresswoman from California's 8th District said the center had received the funding on its merits.
