By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 2, 2006; A04

As House Republicans' unity frays in a difficult election year, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and his expansive 66-member panel are challenging the GOP leadership and Republican conservatives.

Twice last month, Lewis and his committee nearly derailed high-profile legislation, first forcing GOP leaders to pull their 2007 budget blueprint from House debate and then bringing consideration of a major lobbying and ethics bill to a halt Thursday. Only after House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) pleaded, saying that his reputation was at stake, did committee members allow the lobbying bill to proceed to a vote, now scheduled for tomorrow.

Those actions are underscoring a political truism often uttered by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.): Congress has three political parties -- Republicans, Democrats and appropriators. Traditionally, the appropriations committees in both chambers of Congress have operated with bipartisan comity and an independent streak. GOP leaders tried to rein them in after the Republican takeover in 1994, but Lewis in recent weeks has emerged as a force, reasserting his panel's independence.

"We are getting more authoritative," said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), an Appropriations Committee member who behind closed doors spoke vociferously against the lobbying bill, which he thought unfairly singled out the panel. "We are standing up for our turf."

Lewis, elected to the House in 1978, once used his background as a lifeguard to save former House speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) as he flailed off the shores of Hawaii. And the insurance salesman-turned-California pol has been reaching out to the other party ever since, so much so that in 1992, conservatives allied with then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) derailed Lewis's rise through the House leadership. That left him to build his power through the Appropriations Committee.

Lewis assumed the committee chairmanship in 2005 with the Republican leadership's blessing, after a brutal competition with two other Appropriations subcommittee chairmen, Reps. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) and Ralph Regula (R-Ohio). But if GOP leaders expected a more docile committee, they have been taken by surprise -- so much so that some House conservatives have been calling for Lewis to be replaced.

Lewis's leadership first came into focus early last month, when he balked at a 2007 budget plan that would have restricted his committee's ability to pass emergency spending bills in response to natural disasters by limiting annual emergency bills and funding them through a designated rainy-day fund. That budget plan remains in limbo.

But the issue of the committee's conduct came to a head last week when the panel refused to accept provisions in the lobbying bill to restrict the number of earmarks -- narrowly tailored measures to fund home-district projects. Appropriators have guarded their earmarking prerogative for years, generously funding their own districts while doling out favors to House members off the committee.

Under the lobbying bill, such measures and their sponsors would have to be clearly delineated in legislation. Opponents would be granted new power to strip such earmarks from legislation, even if it meant bringing down an entire bill deemed excessively larded with pet projects.

Appropriators first said that the provisions were unnecessary and would tie the House in knots, handing Democrats a cudgel to hit Republicans with. Then they said that if earmarks are to be targeted in the 11 annual appropriations bills that fund the government, it should be done in tax measures and "authorization" bills, such as last year's huge highway bill that funded Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere."

Conservatives, such as Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.), said that Lewis had no real desire to spread earmark reform. By applying earmark limits to the bills of the Ways and Means and Transportation committees, they said, Lewis hoped those committees' chairmen, Reps. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) and Don Young (R-Alaska), would join the effort to scuttle the earmark measures.

Most panel members denied that charge, but Simpson conceded the point to a degree.

"Are there people who still don't like what's happening in terms of earmark reform? Yeah," he said. "And some probably did think Don Young and Bill Thomas would say, 'No, no, no, no,' and kill it altogether."

But most committee members, including Lewis, really thought that spreading the earmark limits was a matter of fairness, Simpson said. In fact, several members who are also on the House leadership's team of vote counters said they were prepared to give up their spots on the "whip" team to vote against the leadership.

"I had the decision, 'Am I a member of the leadership as a whip, or am I an appropriator?' " said Rep. Kay Granger (R-Tex.), who ultimately backed Lewis. "Well, I'm both, and I worked hard to get on the committee."

To panel members, what happened last week was a clear triumph for Lewis. During a closed meeting Thursday afternoon, Hastert and House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) assured members that no final lobbying bill would reach the floor unless its restrictions on earmarking applied to all committees. Boehner said, "There will be no bill, there will be no bill, there will be no bill."

Then Hastert made his appeal, according to GOP aides who were present. He wants his legacy to be a unified, effective Republican conference. The popular speaker is expected to retire in 2008, and Hastert said he needed members' help to preserve his reputation.

Rep. Rodney Alexander (La.), who was elected in 2002 as a Democrat and switched parties two years later, said he believes in Republican principles and does not want to see his party break apart. One member asked Hastert if it is true that momentum is building to unseat Lewis from his chairmanship. Hastert assured the group that Lewis is safe. The committee then moved to back the speaker.

"This was a spontaneous, grass-roots reaction of the entire committee to demand full-scale earmark reform to apply to all committees," said Rep. John A. Culberson (R-Tex.). "And we won."