By Roll Call’s accounting, when more than one lawmaker supported a spending bill, each supporting member was credited with the full amount appropriated to that project.
Turner was ranked No. 26 of 31 House members by that reckoning, with nearly $54.7 million in spending to his credit.
Neither Turner nor a spokeswoman for Turner took issue with that calculation. But Turner thinks the true number might be higher.
The Roll Call roster counts only what he called “bricks-and-mortar” projects. It does not count what he called “programmatic funding,” such as funding for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Last year, Turner and Sen. Jon Husted called attention to the securing of $45 million for a new Human Performance Wing Laboratory at the base, among other projects.
“The number quoted in that article doesn’t include all of the funding that we’ve secured,” Turner said in an interview.
“This is a great designation because it represents the success of our community in our competitiveness for national funding,” he said. “Combined with my seniority and advocacy for community projects, we were able to collectively secure over $50 million for the Dayton region — dollars that would otherwise not have been secured for our community."
Earmarks — now sometimes embraced as “congressionally directed spending” — have not always been seen in a positive light. Former Butler County Republican representative (and former Speaker of the House) John Boehner famously opposed earmarks on principle, arguing that such spending was wasteful and benefitted only small groups of people.
“I’ve been here for 24 years and I’ve never, ever once asked for an earmark or got one,” Boehner told Fox News in 2014, about a year after became speaker. “Not once. I started this effort in 2006 to get rid of earmarks. We are not going back to the nonsense that went on before.”
Turner said funds approved for the Dayton area include $1 million for the Wright-Patterson Regional Council of Governments, a body of local municipal government representatives seeking to improve cooperation with Wright-Patterson.
Turner said he was also able to secure $5 million for the Wright-Dunbar district in West Dayton, funds “that help for economic development in the area, to help along development in the West Third Street area.”
“This is a project that I worked on when I was mayor, in both the housing and in the historic district in that area,” he added.
The city of Dayton received those funds, after a 2023 Dayton Region Priority Development and Advocacy Committee request for $10 million.
The annual PDAC process, overseen by a Dayton Development Coalition committee, allows participants to submit ideas they believe are worthy of federal and state lobbying efforts.
Turner started his political career by defeating Mayor Clay Dixon in November 1993, winning his first of two terms as Dayton mayor.
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