By a sizable - but dwindling - margin, the Senate yesterday voted in favor of allowing lawmakers to keep stocking bills with home-state projects like roads, grants to local police departments and clean-water projects.. But with the House set to tumble into GOP hands and anti-earmark reinforcements coming to the Senate in January, the window seems to be closing on the practice.. Tuesday's 39-56 tally rejected a GOP bid to ban the practice of loading spending bills with so-called earmarks - those parochial provisions that lawmakers deliver to their states - but it appears the curtain is coming down on the practice.. Most Democrats and a handful of Republicans combined to defeat the effort, which would have effectively prohibited the Senate from considering legislation containing earmarks like road and bridge projects, community development funding, grants to local police departments and special-interest tax breaks.. The tally, however, was a better showing for earmark opponents, who lost a 29-68 vote earlier this year. Any votes next year should be closer because a band of anti-earmark Republicans is joining the Senate. Earlier this month, Republicans bowed to tea party activists and passed a party resolution declaring GOP senators would give up earmarks. House Republicans have also given up the practice, but most Democrats say earmarks are a legitimate way to direct taxpayer money to their constituents.. Seven Democrats voted with all but eight Republicans to ban the practice.. President Barack Obama supports a ban as well, but hasn't fought earmarks in the past two years as Democrats controlling Congress enacted two cycles of appropriations bills studded with them.
