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MisalignedGovernment Spending

Oppose congressional earmarks.

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MisalignedFact-checker reviewConfidence: 80%

Independently verified. Rep. Roger Williams (TX-25) promised to oppose congressional earmarks, yet he requested and secured his own Community Project Funding (CPF), which is the current form of congressional earmarks. The Tarleton State University news page (verified live) directly names Williams as securing $3.575 million in CPF through the FY25 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill and quotes him taking public credit: 'I am proud to announce this more than $3.5 million investment in Tarleton State University and the Stephenville community.' The Texas Tribune (Sept 29, 2025, verified live) reports 33 of Texas' 37 House members requested earmark funding and names the only four Republicans who declined (Fallon, Goldman, Roy, Self); Williams is NOT among those abstainers, confirming by exclusion that he requested earmarks. The two cited house.gov URLs return HTTP 403 to automated fetches (a standard bot block, not fabrication), and their content is verbatim-corroborated by the independently verified Tarleton page (identical quote and $3.575M CPF figure). Requesting and securing one's own earmarks is a measure taken directly against a pledge to oppose earmarks, so MISALIGNED (-0.75) is correct. The standard is applied nonpartisanly: four Texas Republicans did decline earmarks, so abstaining was a genuine available choice; Williams chose to participate. A Democrat with an identical record would receive the same label.

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