U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey saw a bill he co-introduced to help child pornography victims pass the Senate last week and he co-introduced another bill to permanently ban earmarks for congressional spending.
On Tuesday, Toomey, R-Lehigh County, and seven Republican colleagues along with a lone Democrat introduced the Earmark Elimination Act, which would permanently ban targeted spending and tax benefits for specific individuals or groups unless two-thirds of the Senate approved a waiver.
“For years, earmarks fueled overspending in Washington and undermined the integrity of our legislative process. We cannot afford to allow Congress to ever resume this practice and play pork-barrel politics with taxpayer dollars,” Toomey said in a joint statement. “Now is the time to get rid of earmarking for good.”
A temporary moratorium on congressional earmarks has been in place since 2010, but the bill would make that permanent.
Among those co-introducing the bill was U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who said that the earmarking practice “breeds corruption, leads to egregious overspending and places the needs of special interests before those of the American people.”
U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., was the only Democrat signed onto the bill. “Earmarks are the Washington swamp creature that just never seems to die – emerging from the lower depths every few years in an effort to waste taxpayer dollars on politicians’ pet projects,” she said.
Toomey’s Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act, co-introduced in November with U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., passed the Senate unanimously and was sent to the House for consideration.
A statement from Toomey’s office said that the bipartisan bill resulted from a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving “Amy,” a Pennsylvania resident, that limited restitution for victims of child pornography. The bill would allow victims to seek “appropriate compensation” from those convicted of possessing or distributing their images, “up to the full amount of the victim’s losses,” according to the statement.
Also, the bill authorizes monetary assistance from the Crime Victims Fund, requires a victim be given a guardian to represent their interests in court and allows victims access to the images depicting them, which defendants now have.
Toomey said the bill’s passage was “an important step toward rectifying the flawed process under current federal law for victims to recover restitution from criminals who produce and traffic child pornography.”