(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) its May 2026 Porkers of the Month for leading the way for feeding at the trough and receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in pork-barrel earmarks.
CAGW’s 2026 Congressional Pig Book revealed 8,595 earmarks costing $24 billion, the fourth largest total since the first Pig Book was released in 1991. Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Patty Murray claimed 96 earmarks costing $484,654,000, the largest total in Congress. Sen. Murray’s immense amount of earmarks included $190,000,000 for the Howard A. Hanson dam. Rep. Fleischmann received 15 earmarks costing $251,378,000, the most in the House of Representatives. Rep. Fleischmann’s earmarks included $213,000,000 for the Chickamauga Lock on the Tennessee River, the largest single earmark in Congress.
CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Sen. Murray and Rep. Fleischmann should be chastised for feeding at the trough and leading the way on the most corrupt, costly and inequitable costly practice in the history of Congress. The members of Congress who restored earmarks in 2021 willfully ignored or forgot why this practice was first subject to the moratorium. For their enormous haul of earmarks, Sen. Murray and Rep. Fleischmann were easy choices for May Porkers of the Month.”
Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. For more than two decades, Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers and government officials who have shown a blatant disregard for the taxpayers.