LegiStorm has made a small change to our earmark pages to make it easier for users to compare members by total earmarks, and to see exactly what goes into the numbers.
The earmark data is complicated by several factors, especially the distinction between presidential earmarks - those included in the presidents budget proposal, and which may also be sponsored by one or many members of Congress - and purely congressional earmarks.
Taxpayers for Common Sense, which compiles and provides the earmark data for LegiStorm, does not include presidential earmarks when comparing the total earmarks for member or state, to better reflect the relative poliltical power of members of Congress. LegiStorm follows this methodology, but it was not always clear how the numbers on our site were calculated regarding presidential earmarks. Previously, although our rankings of member spending used the totals without presidential earmarks, the earmark totals on member pages included presidential earmarks, leading to some inconsistent numbers on the site.
We have now added informational text to the earmark page of each member of Congress, detailing exactly what numbers are used when calculating the various earmark totals on the page. To see the information, just click the 
icon next to each listing.
The change has special relevance this week because stories about senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) backing an earmark ban used a number which, while accurate, is somewhat misleading.
The Washington Post cited Taxpayers for Common Sense data to say McConnell had "sought nearly $1 billion" worth of earmarks. In the past three years (Taxpayer's earmark data reaches back to fiscal year 2008) McConnell was the lone sponsor listed for more than $927 million in earmarks, but much of that was also requested by the president in the budget requests.
When presidential requests are removed from McConnell's totals, the Kentucky senator has been the lone sponsor for about $298 million in earmarks, and a co-sponsor for almost another $160 million, for a total of about $458 million.
On each member's page, LegiStorm does show the total of all earmarks the member has sponsored - including the earmarks requested by the president - just to give our users the most information possible. In this case, McConnell has signed onto about $1.5 billion in earmarked spending the past three years, most of it also requested by the executive branch.
