Congressional earmarks are in a “tea party-induced coma,” Roll Call reports, but that isn’t stopping lawmakers from showing their constituents that they’re still able to bring home the bacon during an election year. 

Hawaii and Washington state examples from the Capitol Hill newspaper: “After the Senate Appropriations panel approved two spending bills last week, Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) issued a press release celebrating a $250 million railway project for Honolulu, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) praised $65 million in funding for the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund, $15 million above President Barack Obama’s proposed budget.”

Inouye has repeatedly defended earmarks as an above-the-boards way for lawmakers to get money to local projects they uniquely understand. Without them, he says money still gets funneled into states but through a more secretive process of “winks and nods” among members of Congress. Here’s how he put it in February: 

“Hawaii is a long way from Washington, DC. It is simply not possible for a bureaucrat here in Washington to understand the needs of my home state as well as I do. Such is the case with all 50 states.”