Democratic senators rushed to cancel $1 million they’d inserted into a new spending bill for an LGBT center in Philadelphia after a viral report alleging that the place hosted sex parties.

Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania asked that the money be pulled from the list of pet projects included in the overall bill, which will fund several Cabinet agencies.

It was exactly the type of embarrassment Congress had hoped to avoid as it takes another spin on the cash carousel known on Capitol Hill as earmarking, where lawmakers redirect some of the usual spending to specific projects in their home states and districts.

After a decade hiatus, earmarks came back under Democratic control in 2021, and this year marked the first time that the GOP had control of one chamber, giving Republicans more ownership of the process — and drawing complaints from some conservatives who derided the cash grab as unseemly for a party pushing for spending cuts.

“We cannot support forcing Americans to fund earmarks that waste $1 million on an ‘environmental justice center’ or $4 million on a Green New Deal police station while 60% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck because of reckless government spending,” said Ryan Walker, executive vice president at Heritage Action, in urging lawmakers to vote against the bill.

The House defied the demand and passed the $460 billion spending bill, earmarks included, on a 339-85 vote Wednesday. The bill now moves to the Senate where passage is also expected, then onto the White House for President Biden’s signature.

It includes money for a swath of government activities ranging from Veterans Affairs, highways and food stamps to the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Smithsonian.

Still to come later this month is a second bill funding the Defense Department, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, among other major agencies.

Before the bungle over the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia, GOP leaders had pronounced themselves happy with how things had gone.

“This has been a transparent, member-driven process from the beginning to eliminate any ‘gotcha’s,’” said a spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican.

Usually, government spending bills give agencies pools of money for certain functions and allow leeway on how exactly the money is spent. Earmarks, known previously as “pork-barrel spending,” bypass that process and order the money to go to a specific entity.

Many lawmakers consider them a core function of legislating and brag about the money they direct to their constituents.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, for example, talked colleagues into spending $7.5 million to update sidewalks in New York’s Putnam County.

Democratic Rep. Don Beyer convinced Congress that his hometown of Falls Church, Virginia, needs half a million dollars of federal money to fix a traffic light at a “blighted” intersection.

And Republican Rep. Robert Aderholt cajoled colleagues into dropping a cool $3.9 million into Russellville, Alabama, to build a new library with more parking and larger meeting areas.

Then there was the LGBT center. A prominent conservative account on X, Libs of TikTok, posted what appeared to be an advertisement for a “play party” at the center.

The senators who’d requested the money quickly backtracked.

“After further review, I am writing to withdraw my support,” Mr. Fetterman wrote in a letter. Mr. Casey, the state’s other Democratic senator, also called for its removal, though both men had championed its inclusion.

The project was removed from the list of approved earmarks by Wednesday, though in a bizarre twist, Mr. Fetterman later said he would fight to add the money back into next year’s spending bills.

This year marks just the third year of earmarking after a decade-long pause, forced by Republicans in 2011, after some egregious abuses and headline-making projects.

Among them was Alaska’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” which was going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a bridge to an island with a tiny population and an already working ferry service.

Then there was the case of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a Republican who sold earmarks to the defense industry. Prosecutors in his eventual criminal case presented his “menu,” where he listed the defense contracts he could get Congress to agree to and what price he needed to be paid for it.

The old process also led to waste. In one case, the community of Jamestown, South Carolina, asked for $50,000 to run a library. The local congressman doubled the money but, when the bill was written, it called for the money to go to Jamestown, California — which didn’t even have a library.

“Somebody spent it, but it wasn’t us,” the town clerk told The Washington Times in 2021.

Earmarks were moribund from 2011 to 2020, thanks to Republicans’ control of at least one chamber of Congress during those years.

But when Democrats grabbed both houses in 2021, they restored earmarks, albeit with new restrictions they said would prevent the kinds of abuses that happened before.

All requests are supposed to be made public and be accompanied by a written justification explaining who’s getting the money and why. And the recipients are supposed to be public offices, such as a county government or a nonprofit agency.

Rep. John Rutherford, Florida Republican, said those have turned out to be “very good guardrails” that have kept earmarking within limits.

And he said it’s Congress’s prerogative to spend the money.

“Do you want the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., deciding where 100% of that money goes, or do you want the representatives?” he said. “I see this as good governance because we are the ones making the decisions.”

He also said the total amount of spending was tiny compared to the overall budget.

The list published by the House Appropriations Committee contained about 3,400 projects totaling $6.1 billion, or 1.3% of the $467.5 billion in total spending.

The big-ticket earmarks are major interstate highway and airport projects. Sen. John Boozman, Arkansas Republican, convinced colleagues to provide $67 million for work on Interstate 49. Rep. Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican, won $36.5 million for a longer runway so the Max Westheimer Airport can handle Gulfstream 5 flights.

But often, it’s the small-ticket items that raise eyebrows, such as questions about the role of the federal government in fixing a local street or traffic light.

“Our concern is that there’s a lot of stoplights and safety needs across the county. When you actually have a process that the projects are awarded on merit or even by formula, you have a much more equitable system of allocating those limited tax dollars,” said Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

While proponents said they’ve fixed the abuses of the old system, it’s still true that states connected to powerful lawmakers do better.

Kentucky, home of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, walked away with about $106 million, and Louisiana, home of the top two House Republicans, is getting $120 million. Massachusetts, which has roughly 40% more people than either of those states, is getting $106 million.

Maine, meanwhile, has just a fifth of the population of Massachusetts but is slated to receive $266.6 million. The state’s senior lawmaker is Sen. Susan Collins, who also serves as the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“By definition, earmarks is substituting political muscle for project merit as far as the decision-making process goes,” Mr. Ellis said.

He said the process does have more transparency in it now than it did two decades ago, but he said there are still improvements to be made, including more transparency about requests in the Senate and the production of a searchable database of approved projects.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.

• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.