So much for “openness and transparency” in the new Democratic-controlled Congress for those earmark requests.

CNN informs us:

Staffers for only 31 of the 435 members of the House contacted by CNN between Wednesday and Friday of last week supplied a list of their earmark requests for fiscal year 2008, which begins on October 1, or pointed callers to Web sites where those earmark requests were posted.

Of the remainder, 68 declined to provide CNN with a list, and 329 either didn’t respond to requests or said they would get back to us, and didn’t.

“As long as we are not required to release them, we’re not going to,” said Dan Turner, an aide to Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Louisiana.

Shouldn’t the Democrats be setting the example by releasing each and every one of their earmark requests and requiring the release of all earmark requests? This is, of course, a bipartisan effort to withhold disclosure of how members of Congress want to waste our money. Republicans are guilty of this as well as Democrats, but the Democrats are in charge now. Seems to me that no significant change will happen if they keep enabling the status quo to protect themselves.

Tags: Republicans, Democrats, earmarks