In a May 7 article on Republican complaints that earmark disclosure rules allowed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to “certify that she had no financial interest in an earmark for repairing a pier even though her husband owns properties nearby,” Congressional Quarterly Today quoted without challenge an anonymous “senior Republican aide” who made a claim about the distance between the pier and the Pelosi properties that was significantly less than the distance asserted by the Republican Study Committee (RSC). In the article, staff writers Jonathan Allen and Kathleen Hunter quoted the senior Republican aide saying, “If Tiger Woods teed a ball up at Pelosi's million-dollar rental property, he could easily hit the earmark in two strokes, with a slight draw to avoid the water.” Unless Woods can drive a ball more than a half-mile, the anonymous aide's claim conflicts with the assertion on the RSC's blog that the Pelosi properties are “within 5,400 feet and 9,000 feet” of the waterfront improvement project.

In fact, Woods won the Laser Link Long Drive contest in 2006 “with a drive of 340 yards, with weather and course conditions being nearly perfect.” Two such drives by Woods would travel 2,040 feet, not even half the distance the RSC claimed was between Pelosi's property and the earmarked project.

As Media Matters for America documented, Associated Press writer Erica Werner reported in a May 7 article that “Republicans are accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of including a provision in a water redevelopment bill that could benefit property her husband owns in San Francisco.” Werner also noted that Republicans have offered no evidence to support the accusation -- raising the question of why the AP thought the article worth writing at all.

Further, in a May 8 post, blogger and media critic Greg Sargent reported that Port of San Francisco officials said they requested the improvements included in Pelosi's earmark. From Sargent's post:

But I've just gotten off the phone with the Port of San Francisco. Guess what? It's representatives told me in no uncertain terms that it requested the improvements, and that Pelosi only included the improvements at their request. Here's what Brad Benson, the special project manager of the Port of San Francisco, said to me:

“The port initiated these requests. They came entirely from the city and county of San Francisco. [The requests] were generated at the staff level. The port initiated our request through the city and county of San Francisco. Our requests were funneled through the mayor's office on up to Speaker Pelosi's office...If anyone is claiming that Pelosi initiated these requests in some way, that's completely false.”

From the May 7 Congressional Quarterly Today article:

Republicans have complained for months that the Democrats' earmark disclosure rules are flawed, and now they have targeted a prominent figure to underscore their point -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

They note that the rules allowed Pelosi to certify that she had no financial interest in an earmark for repairing a pier even though her husband owns properties nearby.

No one has publicly accused the California Democrat of trying to enrich herself with the $25 million authorization for a larger waterfront redevelopment project that includes San Francisco's Pier 35.

But Republicans contend that the situation illustrates the limitations of a new requirement that lawmakers certify that they have no financial interest at all in the earmarks they pursue.

[...]

The new House ethics rule adopted in January requires lawmakers who seek earmarks to provide a written statement to the committee of jurisdiction, including their name; the name, address or location of the beneficiary; the purpose of the earmark; and a certification that neither they nor their spouse has a financial interest in the provision.

Pelosi submitted forms to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee certifying that her support for the waterfront project does not create a conflict of interest. In her disclosure form, Pelosi said repairs to Pier 35's substructure were needed “to enable full cruise ship use of the pier.”

The pier, an old cruise line hub, is located several blocks from two commercial buildings owned at least in part by Pelosi's husband, Paul.

“If Tiger Woods teed a ball up at Pelosi's million-dollar rental property, he could easily hit the earmark in two strokes, with a slight draw to avoid the water,” said a senior Republican aide. “I don't see how the Senate can let these projects stay in the bill with an ethics cloud hanging over them.”

Paul Pelosi has an interest of between $1 million and $5 million in each of the properties and draws annual rental income between $100,000 and $1 million from each, according to the Speaker's 2006 financial disclosure forms.