The Struggle For Earmark Transparency

All three of West Virginia's U.S. House members flunked a recent survey by CNN that asked for their "earmark" requests for the upcoming fiscal year, the network reports.

They were in good company: "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," CNN reported.

A state-by-state pull-down menu notes that 68 members' offices declined the requests outright, while 329 did not respond (all three W.Va. members fall in the latter category). The article also said that "Seven members of the House said they had no earmark requests."

CNN contrasted its results with "the new Democratic congressional leadership's promise of "openness and transparency" in the budget process."

The full listing of responses is here.